Onshore transport of settlement-stage Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus and other fishes in Exuma Sound, Bahamas

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The movement of settlement-stage fishes from the pelagic environment of Exuma Sound, Bahamas, to shallow nursery areas on the Great Bahamas Bank was monitored for 75 d during winter 1990-1991 Fishes were collected with channel nets suspended in tidal passes between islands on the edge of Exuma Sound. Large-scale movement of fishes through the channels was restricted to flood tides that occurred during dark, moonless times of the night; very little movement was observed during the day, on ebb tides, or on moonlit nights. Many of the dominant taxa (e.g. leptocephali, Bothdae) recruited on dark nights throughout the study period, with peak onshore movement on nights when winds and currents had strong cross-shelf components of motion. Other taxa had very short, dscrete recruitment pulses associated with specific environmental events; 86 % of the total annual recruitment of Nassau grouper Epinephelus striatus occurred during a single 4 d storm that triggered extensive cross-shelf movement of water, while another 10 % of the recruitment occurred during a second storm event. This reliance on unpredictable storm events to drive local recruitment suggests that short-term variabihty in wind-driven currents is a possible mechanism behind the significant interannual variability of many fish species.

Larval growth predicts the recruitment success of a coral reef fish

“…Our results are consistent with the suggestion that larval growth and condition may be an important determinant of survivorship in the plankton (Suthers 1998), as has recently been shown to be the case in post-settlement reef fishes (Booth and Hixon 1999;Searcy and Sponagule 2002;Vigliola and Meekan 2002;but see McCormick and Kerrigan 1996). Our findings contrast with much of the current research on recruitment variability in tropical fishes, which has typically emphasised the role of larval transport (Shenker et al 1993;Milicich 1994;Kingsford and Finn 1997;Robertson et al 1999). Such studies have had little success in predicting recruitment intensity.…”

Postlarval settlement of the spiny lobster Panulirus argus along the Caribbean coast of Mexico: Patterns, influence of physical factors, and possible sources of origin

“…In Quintana Roo, extreme settlement pulses of P. argus, which greatly influenced the interannual seasonal pattern, were associated with the passage of tropical storms and hurricanes. Storms have also been shown to influence onshore transport and alongshore distribution of fish larvae (Shenker et al 1993), crab larvae (Etherington and Eggleston 2000), and larvae of P. cygnus (Caputi and Brown 1993). Because tropical storms and hurricanes are common events in the tropical western Atlantic and typically affect large areas or entire regions, they may represent a spatial environmental autocorrelation with important implications for the source-sink dynamics of metapopulations (Etherington and Eggleston 2000;Schiegg 2003).…”

Historical Processes and Contemporary Anthropogenic Activities Influence Genetic Population Dynamics of Nassau Grouper (Epinephelus striatus) within The Bahamas

“…Firstly, pelagic larval dispersal (PLD) and recruitment success are affected by many factors including interspecific competition, predation, larval behavior, oceanographic processes, environmental conditions (e.g., water temperature) and habitat suitability (Colin, 1992(Colin, , 2012Shenker et al, 1993;Choat, 2012;Hamner and Largier, 2012;Kough et al, 2016). The stochastic nature of these biotic and abiotic factors helps to determine population structure and demographic connectivity of adults.…”