Review and consideration on habitat use, distribution and life history of Lycengraulis grossidens (Agassiz, 1829) (Actinopterygii, Clupeiformes, Engraulididae)

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper, we present a summary of the current knowledge of Lycengraulis grossidens, a widely distributed coastal fish that occurs from Belize to Argentina. This species is abundant in estuaries along the Southwest Atlantic Coast and is important for recreational fishing, and as bycatch of shrimp fisheries. We compiled data available on taxonomy, phylogeny, ecology, fisheries and organized conceptually the life cycle of the species according to modern estuarine-use classification. Our review showed that along its geographic distribution and inside some particular environments (i.e., estuaries and costal lagoons) the species have been classified in a variety of ways in order to describe the remarkable complexity of habitat use that varies from freshwater resident, anadromous, marine migrant, estuarine resident, marine stragglers, catadromous to semicatadromous. We conclude that L. grossidens is able to reproduce either in freshwater or estuarine water and postulate that it has a high plasticity in habitat use and life history, with migratory and resident contingents in the same local population. There seems to be a latitudinal change in migratory behavior of this species along the South America Coast, prevailing anadromous or semi-anadromous pattern at higher latitudes and marine migrants at the tropical northeast coast of Brazil. Resumo: Neste trabalho é apresentada uma compilação do conhecimento atual de Lycengraulis grossidens, uma espécie de peixe amplamente distribuído pela costa oeste do Atlântico Sul, ocorrendo de Belize a Argentina. Esta espécie é abundante nos estuários e tem importância na pesca recreacional além de sofrer impacto da pesca do camarão. São revisados dados publicados sobre a taxonomia, filogenia, ecologia, pesca e ciclo de vida da espécie. Nossa revisão mostrou que, ao longo de sua distribuição, a espécie tem sido classificada de várias formas na tentativa de descrever seu uso do habitat, desde residentes de água doce, anádromos, marinhos migrantes, estuarinos residentes, catádromo e semi-catádromo. Conclui-se que a espécie é capaz de se reproduzir em água doce ou salgada, com uma alta plasticidade no uso do habitat e na sua história de vida, com componentes migrantes e residentes no mesmo local. Além disso, parece haver uma mudança no comportamento migratório da espécie em diferentes latitudes, mostrando um padrão anádromo ou semi-anádromo nas maiores latitudes e marinhos migrantes ao longo da costa tropical do Brasil. Palavras-chave: contingentes, estuarino residente, anádromo, catádromo, residente de água doce, revisão.

Structure and diversity of fishes in a freshwater and coastal subtropical lagoon

“…On the other hand, engraulids and clupeids have planktonic life cycles (Mai & Vieira, 2013) and were the dominant groups (>35% of abundance) of larvae collected in the lagoon, with P. platana (Clupeidae) the dominant species. The dominance of Engraulidae and Clupeidae in fish larvae data is common in the coastal environments of north-east (Mafalda et al, 2008), south-east (Joyeux et al, 2004;Castro et al, 2005;Chagas et al, 2006) and south Brazil (Barreiros et al, 2009;Macedo-Soares et al, 2009) and is related to their life cycles.…”

Seasonal composition, abundance and biomass of the subestuarine fish assemblage in Solís Chico (Río de la Plata estuary, Uruguay)

“…Other species registered in the Solís Chico were P. platana, a species commonly registered in estuarine waters, M. liza and P. orbignyanus, migrant species (Ramos and Vieira, 2001;González-Castro et al, 2009;Bruno et al, 2013) whose life cycles involved the Río de la Plata estuary and adjacent marine areas (Jaureguizar et al, 2006;Acuña et al, 2015). Lycengraulis Grossidens, despite being a resident species in freshwater, estuarine and marine environments (Mai and Vieira, 2013) generally found along the Uruguayan coast Norbis et al, 2006), showed a low abundance in the Solís Chico. On the other hand, some collected species in the Solís Chico were categorized as rare.…”

Genetic relationships between landlocked and coastal populations of Lycengraulis grossidens (Engraulidae) in south-eastern South America: evidence for a continental colonisation route with secondary transitions to the coastal region

“…Relaxed molecular clock calibration was established based on the divergence between L. grossidens and L. poeyi across the Isthmus of Panama ,3.5 Ma. diadromous individuals or marine migrants (Mai and Vieira 2013;Mai et al 2014). The existence of additional unknown landlocked populations in the same region needs to be addressed in order to evaluate the composite scenario.…”

“…An association with sea level oscillations may also be hypothesised in this case because there is a general agreement among the timings of gene flow suggested by our chronophylogenetic tree and one of the four last transgressions suggested by Carreño et al (1999) and Tomazelli and Villwock (2005) to the Quaternary Period (445 000-400 000, 325 000, 125 000-80 000 and 6000 years ago). The high plasticity in the life cycle presented by L. grossidens (Mai and Vieira 2013) may have pre-adapted this species to successfully invade and colonise different habitats, enabling the occurrence of multiple evolutionary transitions. Such a diversification model was previously suggested for atherinids (Bamber and Henderson 1988), although in this case the transitions are postulated to have occurred from the coast to vacant niches in fresh water.…”

“…Based on this complex life cycle and on contingent habitat use (Mai and Vieira 2013), the aim of the present study was to investigate the colonisation route by which L. grossidens reached the Parana Basin and the historical connectivity between freshwater and coastal populations in south-eastern South America. We hypothesise that the landlocked population from the Uruguay River has restricted gene flow with regard to the coastal population and that this freshwater population reached its current distribution through a north-to-south continental route putatively associated with ancient connections between the Amazon and Parana basins, as occurred for Sciaenidae species (Cooke et al 2012;Boeger et al 2015).…”