ABSTRACT
Most larval and juvenile fish depend on secondary production by zooplankton, rather than primary production, as a source of food. The relevant spatial/temporal scales range from seconds and centimeters for capture of individual prey to thousands of kilometers and interannual variability due to El Niño events, and there are good examples at both extremes in the California Current. The conceptual problem is to understand how these scales are related to variation in recruitment to fish populations.
