Is a Warming Bering Sea Leading to Smaller Chinook Salmon?

Abstract Excerpt:
The early marine juvenile stages of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) occur in coastal waters off the west coast of USA in early summer, during what has been termed a critical life-history phase. The dominant salmon species represented in this region are juvenile coho (O. kisutch) and Chinook (O. tshawytscha) salmon, but chum (O. keta), pink (O. gorbuscha), and sockeye (O. nerka) salmon, steelhead (O. mykiss) and cutthroat trout (O. clarkii) are found in lower abundances. Following a period of variable freshwater residence, these anadromous salmon enter a highly dynamic but generally productive coastal ocean ecosystem in the Northern California Current (NCC), where they grow quickly and put on reserves for their first winter at sea and subsequent adult life history stage.