Yasumiishi et al.: Effect of population abundance and climate on 2 populations of Oncorhynchus keta 
217 
venile pink salmon from SE has the potential to reduce 
growth of Fish Creek chum salmon. Therefore, fishery 
and hatchery managers may wish to consider adjusting 
the number of pink salmon fry released from hatcheries 
into coastal waters in order to increase early growth 
and subsequent survival of juvenile chum salmon. 
Climate during the first year at sea was strongly 
correlated with survival in salmon (Mueter et al., 2002; 
Martinson et al., 2009). We found that the late juvenile 
growth of chum salmon from Fish Creek increased as 
the velocity of surface winds decreased in the fall — 
an indicator of the occurrence of fall phytoplankton 
blooms. Therefore, the wind velocity index in the north- 
ern GOA may be a useful predictor for the marine sur- 
vival of chum salmon from the GOA. 
This research provides insight into factors that af- 
fect growth and size-at-maturity of chum salmon for 
different life stages of 2 geographically separated 
stocks in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. We found 
evidence for density-dependent growth during the ju- 
venile, immature, and maturing life stages, indicating 
that density-dependent influences on growth at sea in- 
fluence final size at maturity of chum salmon. Results 
of our correlation study were viewed with caution but 
as possible mechanisms for changes in growth and fi- 
nal size-at-maturity of chum salmon. 
Acknowledgments 
Funding and support for this project was received from 
the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Juneau, Alaska 
and the Advanced Studies Program, Professional De- 
velopment program of the National Oceanic and At- 
mospheric Administration. We greatly appreciate the 
assistance of all the people that helped with field col- 
lection throughout the years and the assistance of the 
Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Ketchikan 
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Quil- 
cene National Fish Hatchery in Quilcene, Washington. 
We appreciate the constructive comments from Phil 
Mundy, Ed Farley, and Lisa Eisner. We also thank the 
anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions 
that greatly improved the manuscript. 
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