Inter-Cohort Competition Drives Density Dependence and Selective Mortality in a Marine Fish

For organisms with complex life cycles, the transition between life stages and between habitats can act as a significant demographic and selective bottleneck. In particular, competition with older and larger conspecifics and heterospecifics may influence the number and characteristics of individuals successfully making the transition. We investigated whether the availability of enemy-free space mediated the interaction between adult goldspot gobies (Gnatholepis thompsoni), a. common tropical reef fish, and juvenile conspecifics that had recently settled from the plankton. We added rocks, which provide refuge from predators, to one-half of each of five entire coral reefs in the Bahamas and measured the survival and growth of recent settlers in relation to adult goby densities. We also evaluated whether mortality was selective with respect to three larval traits (age at settlement, size at settlement, and presettlement growth rate) and measured the influence of refuge availability and adult goby density on selection intensity. Selective mortality was measured by comparing larval traits of newly settled gobies (≤ 5 postsettlement) with those of survivors (2-3 week postsettlement juveniles). We detected a negative relationship between juvenile survival and adult goby density in both low- and high-refuge habitats, though experimental refuge addition reduced the intensity of this density dependence. Juvenile growth also declined with increasing adult goby density, but this effect was similar in both low- and high-refuge habitats. Refuge availability had no consistent effect on selective mortality, but adult goby density was significantly related to the intensity of size-selective mortality: bigger juveniles were favored where adults were abundant, and smaller juveniles were favored where adults were rare. Given the typically large difference in sizes of juveniles and adults, similar stage-structured interactions may be common but underappreciated in many marine species

Temperature Influences Selective Mortality during the Early Life Stages of a Coral Reef Fish

For organisms with complex life cycles, processes occurring at the interface between life stages can disproportionately impact survival and population dynamics. Temperature is an important factor influencing growth in poikilotherms, and growth-related processes are frequently correlated with survival. We examined the influence of water temperature on growth-related early life history traits (ELHTs) and differential mortality during the transition from larval to early juvenile stage in sixteen monthly cohorts of bicolor damselfish Stegastes partitus, sampled on reefs of the upper Florida Keys, USA over 6 years. Otolith analysis of settlers and juveniles coupled with environmental data revealed that mean near-reef water temperature explained a significant proportion of variation in pelagic larval duration (PLD), early larval growth, size-at-settlement, and growth during early juvenile life. Among all cohorts, surviving juveniles were consistently larger at settlement, but grew more slowly during the first 6 d post-settlement. For the other ELHTs, selective mortality varied seasonally: during winter and spring months, survivors exhibited faster larval growth and shorter PLDs, whereas during warmer summer months, selection on PLD reversed and selection on larval growth became non-linear. Our results demonstrate that temperature not only shapes growth-related traits, but can also influence the direction and intensity of selective mortality

Seasonal and spatial variability in condition of age-0+ Argentine hake Merluccius hubbsi Marini, 1933, in the San Jorge Gulf (Argentina): A bottom-up perspective

In the north Patagonian region of the Argentinean Continental Shelf, the San Jorge Gulf (SJG; 45°‐47°S, 65°30ʹ‐67°30ʹW) is the main nursery ground of age‐0+ Argentine hake Merluccius hubbsi Marini, 1933, one of the most important fishery resources in Argentina. The gulf exhibits strong seasonal and spatial fluctuations in environmental features, which might affect survival of age‐0+ individuals and recruitment to the adult population. Our main goal was to evaluate the seasonal and spatial dynamics of their nutritional status within the SJG in winter 2016, spring 2016 and summer 2017. Condition indices (relative condition factor Kn, hepatosomatic index HSI and liver lipid content %L) and diet information (feeding incidence and relative importance of prey) were combined with physical (temperature and salinity) and biological (satellite chlorophyll‐a concentration; chl‐a) data. Age‐0+ condition indices and prey intake showed significant seasonal variations, with minimum values in winter, intermediate in summer and maximum in spring, strongly coupled to the mean chl‐a concentration in each season. Herbivorous euphausiids Euphausia spp. were the preferred prey along the study period. A bottom‐up effect on condition of age‐0+ hake is suggested, manifested as lower condition values in winter, the less productive season. Spatially, better conditioned individuals matched sectors of the gulf where chl‐a concentrations were higher, coupled to the presence of frontal systems. Monitoring age‐0+ hake nutritional status is relevant in the current global change scenario, which might modify phytoplankton biomass and composition and, consequently, the herbivorous zooplankton abundances.Fil: Temperoni, Brenda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Subsede Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Pesquero; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: Massa, Agueda Elena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Subsede Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Pesquero; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: Martos, Patricia. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Marinas; ArgentinaFil: Marrari, Marina. Ministerio de Defensa. Armada Argentina. Servicio de Hidrografía Naval. Departamento Oceanografía; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Environmental Change Enhances Cognitive Abilities in Fish

Cichlid fish subjected to a single change in food ration early in life show enhanced learning abilities during juvenile and adult stages

Density‐ and size‐dependent mortality in fish early life stages

The importance of survival and growth variations early in life for population dynamics depends on the degrees of compensatory density dependence and size dependence in survival at later life stages. Quantifying density‐ and size‐dependent mortality at different juvenile stages is therefore important to understand and potentially predict the recruitment to the population. We applied a statistical state‐space modelling approach to analyse time series of abundance and mean body size of larval and juvenile fish. The focus was to identify the importance of abundance and body size for growth and survival through successive larval and juvenile age intervals, and to quantify how the dynamics propagate through the early life to influence recruitment. We thus identified both relevant ages and mechanisms (i.e. density dependence and size dependence in survival and growth) linking recruitment variability to early life dynamics. The analysis was conducted on six economically and ecologically important fish populations from cold temperate and sub‐arctic marine ecosystems. Our results underscore the importance of size for survival early in life. The comparative analysis suggests that size‐dependent mortality and density‐dependent growth frequently occur at a transition from pelagic to demersal habitats, which may be linked to competition for suitable habitat. The generality of this hypothesis warrants testing in future research.publishedVersio

Temperature and Resource Availability May Interactively Affect Over-Wintering Success of Juvenile Fish in a Changing Climate

The predicted global warming may affect freshwater systems at several organizational levels, from organism to ecosystem. Specifically, in temperate regions, the projected increase of winter temperatures may have important effects on the over-winter biology of a range of organisms and especially for fish and other ectothermic animals. However, temperature effects on organisms may be directed strongly by resource availability. Here, we investigated whether over-winter loss of biomass and lipid content of juvenile roach (Rutilus rutilus) was affected by the physiologically relatively small (2-5°C) changes of winter temperatures predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), under both natural and experimental conditions. This was investigated in combination with the effects of food availability. Finally, we explored the potential for a correlation between lake temperature and resource levels for planktivorous fish, i.e., zooplankton biomass, during five consecutive winters in a south Swedish lake. We show that small increases in temperature (+2°C) affected fish biomass loss in both presence and absence of food, but negatively and positively respectively. Temperature alone explained only a minor part of the variation when food availability was not taken into account. In contrast to other studies, lipid analyses of experimental fish suggest that critical somatic condition rather than critical lipid content determined starvation induced mortality. Our results illustrate the importance of considering not only changes in temperature when predicting organism response to climate change but also food-web interactions, such as resource availability and predation. However, as exemplified by our finding that zooplankton over-winter biomass in the lake was not related to over-winter temperature, this may not be a straightforward task

Vertical distribution of fish larvae in the Canaries-African coastal transition zone, in summer

13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables.-- Printed version published Jul 2006.This study reports the vertical distribution of fish larvae during the 1999 summer upwelling season in the Canaries-African Coastal Transition Zone (the Canaries-ACTZ). The transition between the African coastal upwelling and the typical subtropical offshore conditions is a region of intense mesoscale activity that supports a larval fish population dominated by African neritic species. During the study, the thermal stratification extended almost to the surface everywhere, and the surface mixed layer was typically shallow or non-existent. Upwelling occurred on the African shelf in a limited coastal sub-area of our sampling. The vertical distributions of the entire larval fish population, as well as of individual species, were independent of the seasonal thermocline. Fish larvae and mesozooplankton were concentrated at intermediate depths regardless of the thermocline position, probably because of its weak signature and spatial and temporal variability. Day/night vertical distributions suggest that some species did not perform diel vertical migration (DVM), whereas others showed either type I DVM or type II DVM. The opposing DVM patterns of different species compensate for each other resulting in no net DVM for the larval fish population as a whole.Fieldwork was carried out as part of the CANIGO project, funded by the EU, and of the "Pelagic (EU-CICYT 1FD97-1084)" project from the Spanish Ministry of Education and the European Union