Large scale spatio-temporal study on European hake depicts sensitivity to sea bottom temperature, sea bottom oxygen concentration and sea surface temperature.

Abstract

European hake (Merluccius merluccius) is a commercially important fish species that is known to have a marked bathymetric preference. No other environmental variable has yet been identified to drive the distribution of hake. This study looked into different climatic variables at different depths and identified sea bottom temperature, sea bottom dissolved oxygen concentration and chlorophyll concentration to affect the distribution of both juvenile and adult hake distributions.