Abstract
Horizontal ocean transport can influence the dynamics of higher‐trophic‐level species in coastal ecosystems by altering either physical oceanographic conditions or the advection of food resources into coastal areas. In this study, we investigated whether variability in two North Pacific Current (NPC) indices was associated with changes in productivity of North American Pacific salmon stocks. Specifically, we used Bayesian hierarchical models to estimate the effects of the north‐south location of the NPC bifurcation (BI) and the NPC strength, indexed by the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), on the productivity of 163 pink, chum, and sockeye salmon stocks. We found that for salmon stocks located in Washington (WA) and British Columbia (BC), both the BI and NPGO had significant positive effects on productivity, indicating that a northward‐shifted bifurcation and a stronger NPC are associated with increased salmon productivity. For the WA and BC regions, the estimated NPGO effect was over two times larger than the BI effect for pink and chum salmon, whereas for sockeye salmon the BI effect was 2.4 times higher than the NPGO. In contrast to WA and BC stocks, we found weak effects of both horizontal ocean transport processes on the productivity of salmon stocks in Alaska. Our results indicated that horizontal transport pathways might strongly influence population dynamics of Pacific salmon in the southern part of their North American ranges, but not the northern part, suggesting that different environmental pathways may underlie changes in salmon productivity in northern and southern areas for the species under consideration.