The objective of my research was to determine the importance of prey availability and temperature to abundance and vital rates of young-of-the-year (YOY) smallmouth bass (SMB) during the parental care period of development. Results of this research suggested that food limitation is a relatively minor phenomenon in SMB populations during the larval and early juvenile periods of development and that the most important cause of mortality may be predation. Swimming speed, foraging rate, agonistic interactions and nearest neighbour distance of individual YOY were unrelated to brood size, suggesting that competition for prey resources did not increase with brood size. Dispersion of broods within the nesting territories was positively related to both body size and brood size, but YOY density within broods did not differ across brood size. Zooplankton sampling within and adjacent to natural broods revealed no evidence for resource depression by YOY bass. The size of first-feeding larvae differed significantly among years. The average duration of the embryonic and larval periods of development differed significantly among years. Brood-specific growth rates of larvae were positively associated with water temperature in 4 of 5 years. The relationship between mean annual growth rate and water temperature was significantly correlated among years. In contrast, brood-specific growth rates of larvae were not significantly related to the seasonal peak in prey biomass, nor did prey biomass account for much of the inter-annual variability in larval growth rates. Brood-specific mortality rates differed significantly among years. Mortality rates of early larvae were generally equal to, or below, those of late larvae within years and the critical period hypothesis in first-feeding larvae was rejected. Mortality rates of larvae were not significantly related to the seasonal peak in prey biomass offering little support for the match-mismatch hypothesis. Cumulative mortality was unrelated to phase duration during the early larval phase but was significantly positively associated during the late larval phase. My results suggested that temperature can strongly influence both growth and developmental rates, size attained at metamorphosis and cumulative mortality rates of larvae. Growth and mortality rates of larvae were negatively associated in all years, supporting the growth-mortality hypothesis.