Analysing historical Herring (Clupea harengus) monitoring data and the search for explanatory abiotic variables

Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) are found in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean and have been one of the most important fish on European markets since the middle ages. One of the main goals of this pilot study was to search for, and elucidate trends in individual fish characteristics during the (short) increase in herring catches in the 1940s (by means of the dataset from Gilson and Gilis). The individual fish characteristics were also linked to AMO and Temperature (T) anomalies data. Secondly, long term trends in the herring fishery data were investigated (by means of the ICES dataset), especially in relation to environmental variables. First, data exploration methods were used to give insights in the data and show possible correlations, after which we used correlation tests and modelling approaches to statistically test these relations.