Northern cod spawning sites in 2015

A decade ago, in 2015, a paper in this journal heralded the “comeback” of Canada’s iconic Northern cod some 25 years after its collapse in the early 1990s. In this paper, the stock status determined by current and past models and recent management is reviewed, 10 years later. Summarily, surplus production and growth have stalled, some years being negative, although the stall point biomass is controversial (and well below historical norms). Structural equation models indicate the main correlate of production is spawning stock biomass (positive), whose correlates are abundances of capelin (Mallotus villosus) (positive) and harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) (negative), with net production (enabling SSB growth) further reduced by fisheries. Reductions in the SSB thought necessary to avoid impairing recruitment, from 1.3 to 0.25 million t, have led to increases in harvest allocations and reopened commercial Canadian and foreign fisheries, despite advice by the Department of Fisheries and..., , # Northern cod spawning sites in 2015

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.w6m905r2r](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w6m905r2r)

## Description of the data and file structure

Spawning location data were collected from an acoustic-trawl survey of Northern cod (NAFO Divisions 2J3KL) conducted in May 2015 from the research vessel \"Celtic Explorer\". The survey echosounder was a Kongsberg Simrad EK600 using Echoview software for analyses. The cod were caught in 15-minute fishing sets (or less if densities were high) using a Campelen 1800 research trawl directed by acoustic information. All sets containing female spawning cod were virtually 100% cod (no bycatch of other species). The complete survey track is included in the second file. The third file contains spawning timing data (Mean percent of adult female in spawning condition (hydrated eggs present) in bottom trawl sets (weighted by total catch) from acoustic-trawl surveys in winter (January and February), early spring (March and April), late s...,