Document Type
Article
Abstract
We investigated the influence of climatic and environmental factors on variations in juvenile abundances of marine fishes in a river-dominated coastal system of the north-central Gulf of Mexico, where an elevated primary productivity sustains fisheries of high economic importance. Fish were collected monthly with an otter trawl at three stations near Mobile Bay from 1982 to 2007. Fish sizes were used to isolate juvenile stages within the data set, and monthly patterns in juvenile fish abundance and size were then used to identify seasonal peaks for each species. The average numbers of juvenile fish collected during these seasonal peaks in each year were used as indices of annual juvenile abundances and were related to corresponding seasonal averages of selected environmental factors via a combination of principal components analysis and co-inertia analysis. Factors contributing the most to explain interannual variations in juvenile fish abundances were river discharge and water temperature during early spring–early summer, wind speed and North Atlantic Oscillation index during late fall–winter, and atmospheric pressure and wind speed during summer–fall. For example, juvenile abundances of southern kingfish Menticirrhus americanus during summer–fall were positively associated with atmospheric pressure and negatively associated with wind speed during this period. Southern kingfish juvenile abundances during late fall–winter were also negatively associated with wind speed during the same period and were positively associated with river discharge during early spring–early summer. Juvenile abundances of the Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus during early spring–early summer were negatively associated with river discharge and North Atlantic Oscillation during late fall–winter. Overall, the importance of river discharge for many of the species examined emphasizes the major role of watershed processes for marine fisheries production in coastal waters of the north-central Gulf of Mexico.
First Page
411
Last Page
427
DOI
10.1080/19425120.2011.642492
Publication Date
12-2011
Department
Marine and Environmental Sciences
Recommended Citation
Recommended publisher citation: Carassou, L., Dzwonkowski, B., Hernandez, F.J., Powers, S.P., Park, K., Graham, W.M. and Mareska, J. (2011), Environmental Influences on Juvenile Fish Abundances in a River-Dominated Coastal System. Marine and Coastal Fisheries, 3: 411-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/19425120.2011.642492
Included in
Aquaculture and Fisheries Commons, Biodiversity Commons, Marine Biology Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Oceanography Commons, Population Biology Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons
Comments
This article was published in the journal of Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science from the American Fisheries Society by Taylor and Francis Online.
A link to the online published versions can be found here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19425120.2011.642492
https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1080/19425120.2011.642492
The publisher may require a subscription or other payment to access the online version.
The publisher's recommended citation must be used when citing this article.
This article is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license [CC BY 4.0]