Relationships Between Meteorological and Water Quality Variables and Fisheries-Independent White Shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus) Catch in the ACE Basin NERR, South Carolina

White shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus) fisheries-independent and fisheries-dependent landings can be highly variable and may be related to environmental factors that influence growth, mortality, and survival. We used linear regression analysis to look for potential relationships between environmental and white shrimp catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data collected from the Ashepoo-Combahee-Edisto (ACE) Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) for four critical months in the shrimp life cycle. This analysis used data from white shrimp fisheries-independent CPUE (2002 to 2014) and water quality and meteorological variables for August (juvenile), December (sub-adult), March (adult), and April (spawning adult). The results showed that shrimp CPUE was mainly correlated with water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen concentration collected through the ACE Basin NERR’s System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP), but offshore wind, precipitation, and intra-annual CPUEs also partially explained the variability in monthly CPUEs. Black gill prevalence was correlated with water temperature and salinity. Additionally, our analysis found that winter water temperatures of ≤11 °C were correlated with reduced shrimp abundance the following spring. Ultimately, managers would like to successfully predict white shrimp stock abundance throughout fishing seasons based on environmental conditions. This study is a first step in identifying the environmental variables that may be useful in predicting white shrimp CPUE in the South Atlantic Bight. The techniques employed here can serve as a basis for predicting and managing other wild annual fisheries stocks.