Data and model code from: Tracing growth patterns in cod (Gadus morhua L.) using bioenergetic modelling

Understanding individual growth in commercially exploited fish populations is key to successful stock assessment and informed ecosystem-based fisheries management. Traditionally, growth rates in marine fish are estimated using otolith age-reading in combination with age-length relationships from field samples, or tag-recapture field experiments. However, for some species, otolith-based approaches have been proven unreliable, and tag-recapture experiments suffer from high working effort and costs as well as low recapture rates. An important alternative approach for estimating fish growth is represented by bioenergetic modelling, which, in addition to pure growth estimation, can provide valuable insights into the processes leading to temporal growth changes resulting from environmental and related behavioural changes. We here developed an individual-based bioenergetic model for Western Baltic cod (Gadus morhua), traditionally a commercially important fish species that however collapsed recently and likely suffers from climate change effects. Western Baltic cod is an ideal case study for bioenergetic modelling because of recently gained in-situ process knowledge on spatial distribution and feeding behaviour based on highly resolved data on stomachs and fish distribution. Additionally, physiological processes such as gastric evacuation, consumption, net-conversion efficiency, and metabolic rates have been well studied for cod in laboratory experiments. Our model reliably reproduced seasonal growth patterns observed in the field. Importantly, our bioenergetic modelling approach implementing depth-use patterns and food intake allowed us to explain the potentially detrimental effect summer heat periods have on growth of Western Baltic cod that likely will increasingly occur in the future. Hence our model simulations highlighted a potential mechanism of how warming due to climate change affects the growth of a key species that may apply for similar environments elsewhere.

Here we provide access to the individual-based bioenergetic growth model which is set up to model the growth of cod in ages 2 to 4 (Gadus morhua L.) in the Belt Sea (western part of the Western Baltic Sea) on a daily basis within one year. The model incorporates contemporary in-situ process knowledge on food intake and seasonal- and temperate-related spatial distribution of cod and allows us to identify seasonal growth patterns. The model is written in the statistical and programming environment R.