Bouchoucha, M., Brach-Papa, C., Gonzalez, J. - L., Lenfant, P., & Darnaude, A. M. (2018). Growth, condition and metal concentration in juveniles of two Diplodus species in ports. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 126(Supplement C), 31–42.
Résumé: High abundances of juvenile fish in certain ports suggest they might provide alternative nursery habitats for several species. To further investigate this possibility, post-settlement growth, metal uptake and body condition were estimated in 127 juveniles of two seabream species, collected in 2014–15, inside and outside the highly polluted ports of the Bay of Toulon. This showed that differences in local pollution levels (here in Hg, Cu, Pb and Zn) are not consistently mirrored within fish flesh. Muscle metal concentrations, below sanitary thresholds for both species, were higher in ports for Cu, Pb and V only. Otherwise, fish muscle composition principally differed by species or by year. Juvenile growth and condition were equivalent at all sites. Higher prey abundance in certain ports might therefore compensate the deleterious effects of pollution, resulting in similar sizes and body conditions for departing juvenile fish than in nearby natural habitats.
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Cuif, M., Keller, F., Chateau, O., Kaplan, D., Labonne, M., Lett, C., et al. (2014). Evaluation of transgenerational isotope labeling of embryonic otoliths in a coral reef damselfish with single and repeated injections of enriched (137)Barium. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 459, 151–159.
Résumé: Quantifying the larval dispersal component of population connectivity is extremely challenging due to the many difficulties associated with directly observing larvae in their marine environment. Transgenerational isotope labeling is a recent empirical technique that addresses this challenge. It relies on the transmission of an artificially enriched stable isotope (e.g., Ba-137) from gravid females to the embryonic otoliths of their offspring, allowing for mass permanent marking of larvae. Before implementing transgenerational isotope labeling in the wild, it is essential to investigate the transmission longevity of the mark from females to larvae and to assess the potential negative effects on females and their offspring. We injected females of the Humbug damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, with an enriched Ba-137 solution and reared the resulting progeny to test the marking success and the transmission longevity of the mark, as well as determine potential effects of transgenerational isotope labeling on spawning frequency and size of 1-day eggs and 2-day larvae. Three different single-injection dosages (0.5, 1 and 5 mu g of Ba-137 g(-1) fish weight) were tested, as well as monthly repeated injections of the lowest dosage over a whole reproductive season. We implemented a new method that allows extracting otoliths of newly hatched larvae and analyzing them using laser ablation coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). We showed that for D. aruanus, injection with a low dose (0.5 mu g Ba-137 g(-1), fish weight) produced consistently significantly marked larvae with a half-life for successful enriched Ba mark transmission of approximately 1 month, and that monthly repeated injections of this dose did not negatively impact spawning success or condition of eggs and larvae. Monthly repeated injections of enriched Ba isotope injections at 0.5 mu g Ba-137 g(-1) fish weight will therefore present an effective means of mass marking D. aruanus larvae throughout an entire reproductive season.
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Dortel, E., Massion-Granier, F., Rivot, E., Million, J., Hallier, J. - P., Morize, E., et al. (2013). Accounting for age uncertainty in growth modeling, the case study of yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) of the Indian Ocean. PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org, 8(4).
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Duponchelle, F., Pouilly, M., Pecheyran, C., Hauser, M., Renno, J. - F., Panfili, J., et al. (2016). Trans-Amazonian natal homing in giant catfish. J. Appl. Ecol., 53(5), 1511–1520.
Résumé: 1. Knowledge of fish migration is a prerequisite to sustainable fisheries management and preservation, especially in large international river basins. In particular, understanding whether a migratory lifestyle is compulsory or facultative, and whether adults home to their natal geographic area is paramount to fully appraise disruptions of longitudinal connectivity resulting from damming. 2. In the Amazon, the large migratory catfishes of the Brachyplatystoma genus are apex predators of considerable interest for fisheries. They are believed to use the entire length of the basin to perform their life cycle, with hypothesized homing behaviours. Here, we tested these hypotheses, using the emblematic B. rousseauxii as a model species. 3. We sampled adults close to major breeding areas in the Amazon basin (upper Madeira and upper Amazonas) and assessed their lifetime movements by measuring variations in Sr-87/Sr-86 along transverse sections of their otoliths (ear stones) using laser ablation multicollector mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICPMS). 4. We demonstrate that larvae migrate downstream from the Andean piedmont to the lower Amazon, where they grow over a protracted period before migrating upstream as adults. Contrary to prevailing inferences, not all fish spend their nursery stages in the Amazon estuary,. By contrast, the passage in the lower or central Amazon seems an obligate part of the life cycle. We further evidence that most adults home to their natal geographic area within the Madeira sub-basin. Such long-distance natal homing is exceptional in purely freshwater fishes. 5. Synthesis and applications. By using otolith microchemistry, we were able to demonstrate a seemingly compulsory basin-wide migratory life cycle of large Amazonian catfishes. This makes them the organisms performing the longest migrations ( >8000 km) in fresh waters. This exceptional life history is already jeopardized by two dams recently built in the Madeira River, which block a major migration route and access to a substantial part of their spawning grounds. Major impacts can be anticipated from the current and forthcoming hydroelectric development in the Amazon basin, not only on the populations and fisheries of this apex predator, but also on Amazonian food webs through trophic cascades.
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Eveson, J. P., Million, J., Sardenne, F., & Le Croizier, G. (2015). Estimating growth of tropical tunas in the Indian Ocean using tag-recapture data and otolith-based age estimates. Fisheries Research, , 58–68.
Résumé: A growth model from which the expected age of a fish can be estimated based on its length is a key component to most stock assessments. For the three tropical tuna species in the Indian Ocean – yellowfin (YFT; Thunnus albacares), bigeye (BET; T. obesus) and skipjack (SKJ; Katsuwonus pelamis) – information about growth has been very limited until recently, when data from a large-scale Indian Ocean tuna tagging program became available. In this paper, parametric growth models were fit to tag-recapture data for all three species using a maximum likelihood method that models the joint density of release and recapture lengths as a function of age by treating age at tagging as a random variable. The method allows for individual variability in growth by modelling the asymptotic length parameter as a random effect. Direct age and length data from otolith readings were also included in the analysis for YFT and BET. The results support two-stanza growth models for all three species; however, the growth patterns for YFT and BET differ from SKJ. YFT and BET exhibit a transition in growth between age 2 and 3, with faster growth in the second stanza than the first, whereas SKJ exhibit a transition in growth around age 1, with much faster growth in the first stanza than the second. Most likely, YFT and BET also experience a phase of rapid growth directly following hatching, but lack of data for fish less than 50 cm for these species precludes its estimation. Differences in growth between sexes were found for YFT and BET, with males growing to a larger size; information on sex was not available for SKJ.
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