Five decades of change in somatic growth of Pacific hake from Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia.

Declines in fish body size have been reported in many populations and these changes likely have important ramifications for the sustainability of harvested species and ecosystem function. Pacific hake, , have shown declines in size over the last several decades for populations located in Puget Sound (PS), Washington, USA, and Strait of Georgia (SoG), British Columbia, Canada. To examine this decrease in size, we used archived otoliths from both populations to assess when the decrease in somatic growth occurred and explored what factors and processes might explain the decline, including otolith microchemistry to infer the environment experienced by fish at different ages.