Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Maturity, spawning, and ovarian cycle of Atlantic croaker, Micropogonias undulatus, in the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent coastal waters
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Barbiéri, Luiz R. R. Mark, E. Chittenden Barbieri, Susan K. Lowerre |
| Copyright Year | 1994 |
| Abstract | Virginia Institute of Marine Science. College of William and Mary Gloucester Point, Virginia 23062 Maturity, spawning, and ovarian cycle of Atlantic croaket Micropogonias undulatus, in the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent coastal waters * Abstract.-The reproductive biology ofAtlantic croaker, Micropogonias undulatus, collected during 1990-91 from commercial catches in Chesapeake Bay and in Virginia and North Carolina coastal waters (n=3,091), was studied by using macroscopic and microscopic gonad staging, the gonadosomatic index, oocyte diameter distributions, and histological analysis. Atlantic croaker are multiple spawners with asynchronous oocyte development and indeterminate fecundity. Mean length at first maturity for males and females was 182 and 173 mm TL, respectively. More than 85% of both sexes were mature by the end of their first year and all were mature by age 2. Spawning extends over a protracted period (July-December), but individual fish apparently spawn over a shorter interval. Eleven gravid and runningripe females were collected within the Chesapeake Bay suggesting some spawning occurs in estuarine waters. Monthly sex ratios indicated a strong predominance of females during the main period of spawning. A high incidence of atretic. advanced yolked oocytes in spawning females collected throughout the spawning season suggests that a surplus production ofyolked oocytes may be part of the reproductive strategy ofAtlantic croaker. TheAtlantic croaker, Micropogonias undulatus (Linnaeus), ranges from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the Bay of Campeche, Mexico (Welsh and Breder, 1923; Johnson, 1978). Although not common north ofNew Jersey (Hildebrand and Schroeder, 1928; McHugh, 1981), it is one ofthe most abundant inshore, demersal species of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States (Joseph,1972). Despite the large number ofstudies describing spawning periodicity of Atlantic croaker in the mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake regions (e.g. Hildebrand and Schroeder, 1928; Wallace, 1940; Johnson, 1978; Colton et aI., 1979; Morse, 1980; Norcross andAustin, 1988), studies on reproductive biology are rare and mostly incomplete. Information on sexual maturity, fecundity, and sex ratios has been reported (Hildebrand and Schroeder, 1928; Wallace, 1940; Morse, 1980). However, speculation on whether or not Atlantic croaker spawn within Chesapeake Bay (Welsh and Breder, 1923; Pearson, 1941; Haven, 1957) has not been investigated; estimates of size at maturity (Wallace, 1940; Morse, 1980) do not agree; estimates ofage at maturity (Welsh and Breder, 1923; Wallace, 1940) were based on length frequency and scale ageing, which have been shown to be less accurate than otolith ageing for Atlantic croaker (Joseph, 1972; Barbieri et aI., 1994); and available fecundity estimates (Morse, 1980) cannot be used without an evaluation ofAtlantic croaker's fecundity pattern, i.e. whether they have determinate or indeterminate annual fecundity. Traditionally, estimates of fish fecundity have been based on the assumption that the total number of eggs spawned by a female each year (annual fecundity) is fixed prior to the onset of spawning, a condition known as determinate fecundity (Hunter et aI., 1992). However, recent evidence (Hunter and Goldberg, 1980; Hunter and Macewicz, 1985a; Hunter et aI., 1985; Horwood and Greer Walker, 1990) indicates that in many temperate and tropical fish annual fecundity cannot be estimated from the standing stock of advanced oocytes because unyolked oocytes continue to be matured and spawned through- |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/spo/FishBull/924/barbieri.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1595&context=vimsarticles |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1596&context=vimsarticles |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
