Small-pelagic fishes are economically and ecologically important as they make up a large
proportion of wild-caught fisheries and provide an important link between planktonic
organisms and higher trophic level organisms such as piscivorous fishes, squid, seabirds
and marine mammals. In the California Current Ecosystem (CCE), the distribution and
abundance of Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) is influenced by both natural climate
variability and exploitation. This study uses Generalized Additive Models to evaluate the …