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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.07.10.196923

Temperature triggers provide quantitative predictions of multi-species fish spawning peaks

Emma S. Choi·Erik Saberski·Tom Lorimer·Cameron Smith·Unduwap Kandage-don·Ronald S. Burton·George Sugihara
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Abstract

We find a startling correlation (Pearson {rho} > 0.97) between a single event in daily sea surface temperatures each spring, and peak fish egg abundance measurements the following summer, in 7 years of approximately weekly fish egg abundance data collected at Scripps Pier in La Jolla California. Even more surprising is that this event-based result persists despite the large and variable number of fish species involved (up to 46), and the large and variable time interval between trigger and response (up to ~3 months). To mitigate against potential over-fitting, we make a true out-of-sample prediction for the peak summer egg abundance that will be observed at Scripps Pier this year.

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Emma S. Choi, Erik Saberski, Tom Lorimer, Cameron Smith, Unduwap Kandage-don, Ronald S. Burton, George Sugihara. 2020-07-10. Temperature triggers provide quantitative predictions of multi-species fish spawning peaks. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.10.196923

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