Impacts of the match-mismatch hypothesis across three trophic levels—a case study in the North Sea

Abstract Sustainable fishery practices require accurate predictions of fish recruitment—the abundance a new year class entering fishery. A key driver recruitment is the impact predator-prey dynamics experienced during early life stages has on their survival at later stages, as in Match-Mismatch Hypothesis (MMH). MMH states that predator depends match (or mismatch) between timing feeding and prey availability. This study aims to understand how spatio-temporal overlap explains variation pelagic population. We explore each pair three trophic levels North Sea (NS) from 1982–2017: herring (Clupea harengus) larvae, zooplankton (Temora longicornis, Oithona sp.,Pseudocalanus spp., Acartia spp.), phytoplankton index. found explained 23% (1-year-old) NS autumn-spawning (NSAS) herring, performed similarly (21–26%) when using different levels, there was spatial pattern both negative relationship recruitment, similar habitat use herring. Our results characterize MMH, including variability, plays controlling while also considering unexplained for future study.