On the effect of environmental factors on the formation of variability of the Pacific herring in the area from the White to the Yellow Seas
Pacific herring Clupea pallasii Val. -an important commercial species, the range of which covers not only the boreal waters of the Asian and American coasts of the Pacific Ocean, but also extends to the coastal waters of northern Eurasia. The article examines the features of the ecological, biological, morphological variability of the Pacific herring in the extended range from the White to the Yellow Seas, covering the waters of the Arctic, boreal, subtropical zones. The modern habitat of the Pacific herring is represented by two subunits: the ancient range (about 5 million years old) (the coastal area of the North Pacific) and the newly formed range (about 6 thousand years old) -(shelf zones of the Bering, Okhotsk, Yellow Seas, the Arctic coast of Eurasia). The highest growth rate is characteristic of herring in the boreal zone; the lowest values were found for herring from the Kara Sea and the White Sea spring-spawning herring. The results of multivariate discriminant analysis illustrate the similarity of Pacific herring in different areas of the range in terms of a set of meristic characters. The features of changes in the temporal characteristics of the spawning period in Pacific herring in different parts of the range are considered.