Effects of intense storm events on dolphin occurrence and foraging behavior.

As storms become increasingly intense and frequent due to climate change, we must better understand how they alter environmental conditions and impact species. However, storms are ephemeral and provide logistical challenges that prevent visual surveys commonly used to understand marine mammal ecology. Thus, relatively little is known about top predators' responses to such environmental disturbances. In this study, we utilized passive acoustic monitoring to characterize the response of bottlenose dolphins to intense storms offshore Maryland, USA between 2015 and 2017. During and following four autumnal storms, dolphins were detected less frequently and for shorter periods of time. However, dolphins spent a significantly higher percentage of their encounters feeding after the storm than they did before or during. This change in foraging may have resulted from altered distributions and behavior of their prey species, which are prone to responding to environmental changes, such as varied sea surface temperatures caused by storms. It is increasingly vital to determine how these intense storms alter oceanography, prey movements, and the behavior of top predators.

Depressed resilience of bluefin tuna in the western atlantic and age truncation.

Following intense overfishing in the 1970s, the western stock of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) experienced a long period of depressed abundance, which has been attributed to failure of the population to periodically produce large numbers of juveniles, the western stock mixing with the more highly exploited eastern stock (fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea), and regime shift in the population's ecosystem resulting in lower replacement rates. To evaluate the presence of relatively strong years of juvenile production, we analyzed age structure from a recent sample of otoliths (ear stones) collected from the western stock (2011-2013, North Carolina, U.S.A., winter fishery). Mixing levels for the recent sample were analyzed using otolith stable isotopes to test whether age structure might be biased through immigration of eastern stock bluefin tuna. Age structure from historical samples collected from United States and Canadian fisheries (1975-1981) was compared with more recent samples (1996-2007) to examine whether demographic changes had occurred to the western stock that might have disrupted juvenile production. Relatively high juvenile production occurred in 2003, 2005, and 2006. Otolith stable isotope analysis showed that these recruitments were mostly of western stock origin. However, these high recruitments were >2-fold less than historical recruitment. We found substantial age truncation in the sampled fisheries. Half the historical sample was >20 years old (mean age = 20.1 [SD 3.7]; skewness = -0.3), whereas <5% of the recent sample was >20 years old (mean age = 13.4 [SD 3.8]; skewness = 1.3). Loss of age structure is consistent with changes in fishing selectivity and trends in the stock assessment used for management. We propose that fishing, as a forcing variable, brought about a threshold shift in the western stock toward lower biomass and production, a shift that emulates the regime shift hypothesis. An abbreviated reproductive life span compromised resilience by reducing the period over which adults spawn and thereby curtailing the stock's ability to sample year-to-year variability in conditions that favor offspring survival (i.e., storage effect). Because recruitment dynamics by the western stock exhibit threshold dynamics, returning it to a higher production state will entail greater reductions in exploitation rates.

Age, growth and hatch dates of ingressing larvae and surviving juveniles of Atlantic menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus.

Ages, growth and hatch dates of ingressing Brevoortia tyrannus larvae were determined in a 3 year sampling survey at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, U.S.A. To determine if otolith-aged cohorts had variable relative survival, hatch dates of summer-caught young-of-the-year (YOY) juveniles collected throughout the Chesapeake Bay were compared with hatch dates of ingressing larvae. Modal total length of ingressing larvae was similar among years: 28 mm in 2005-2006 and 2007-2008, and 30 mm in 2006-2007. Ages of ingressing larvae ranged from 9 to 96 days post hatch (dph); mean ages were similar among years, but significantly older in 2006-2007 (50 dph) than in 2005-2006 (44 dph) and 2007-2008 (46 dph). Larval growth rates differed among years. Earliest growth, when larvae were offshore (0-20 dph), was faster in 2006-2007 (0·62 mm day(-1)), than in 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 (0·55 mm day(-1) in these years). Subsequently, from 30 to 80 dph, growth was slowest in 2006-2007. Hatch dates of ingressing larvae occurred from September to March and 90% (2007-2008) to 98% (2006-2007) had hatched prior to 31 December. In contrast, most surviving YOY juvenile B. tyrannus had hatched in January to February, suggesting selective mortality of early-hatched individuals, apparently during the overwinter, larval to juvenile transition period.

A phylogeny of the temperate seabasses (Moronidae) characterized by a translocation of the mt-nd6 gene.

The entire mitochondrial genome of the striped bass Morone saxatilis was sequenced together with the mitochondrial (mt) control regions of the white bass Morone chrysops, white perch Morone americana, yellow bass Morone mississippiensis, spotted seabass Dicentrarchus punctatus, European seabass Dicentrarchus labrax and the Japanese seabass Lateolabrax japonicus. The resultant 17 580 base pair circular genome of M. saxatilis contains 38 genes (13 proteins, 23 transfer RNAs and two ribosomal RNAs) and a control region bordered by the proline and phenylalanine mitochondrial tRNAs. Gene arrangement was similar to other vertebrates, except that the mt-nd6 gene was found within the control region rather than the canonical position between the mt-nd5 and mt-cyb genes. This translocation was found in all the Morone and Dicentrarchus species studied without functional copies or pseudogenes in the ancestral position. In L. japonicus, the mt-nd6 gene was found in the canonical position without evidence of an mt-nd6 gene in the control region. A Bayesian analysis of these and published mt-nd6 sequences from 45 other Perciformes grouped the Morone and Dicentrarchus species monophyletically with a probability of 1·00 with respect to L. japonicus and all other perciforms, and placed the Dicentrarchus species in the basal position. These data reinforce current placement of L. japonicus outside the Moronidae and provide a clear evolutionary character to define this family. The phylogeny of the Moronidae presented here also supports the hypothesis of an anadromous common ancestor to this family that gave rise to the North American estuarine and freshwater species. A series of tandem repeats previously reported in M. saxatilis was found in the control region of all Morone species between the mt-nd6 and mt-rnr1 genes, but not in either Dicentrarchus species, which reinforces the continued use of these two separate genera.

Experimental and field evidence of behavioural habitat selection by juvenile Atlantic Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus and shortnose Acipenser brevirostrum sturgeons.

The present work reports behavioural responses by young-of-the-year (21-30 cm) Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus and shortnose sturgeon Acipenser brevirostrum to nine binary combinations of dissolved oxygen saturation (40, 70 and 100%), temperature (12, 20 and 28°C) and salinity (1, 8 and 15). Both species showed no acclimation effects and similar discrimination and avoidance reactions to hypoxia (40% oxygen saturation), selecting higher dissolved oxygen choices in 71% of the tests. Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus and A. brevirostrum showed a similar preference for 20°C (>64% incidence), but differed in their responses to extreme temperature choices. Acipenser brevirostrum showed a significant avoidance behaviour to the 12°C but not to the 28°C choice. In contrast, A. o. oxyrinchus showed similar preference for 12 and 20°C, but avoided the 28°C choice in 71% of the tests where this temperature was included (P < 0·01). No significant preferences were observed among salinity choices, except between salinities 1 and 8, where A. o. oxyrinchus showed a significant preference for salinity 8. Behavioural responses matched expectations from bioenergetics in both species and were also consistent with the distribution of juvenile A. o. oxyrinchus capture locations in the Chesapeake Bay.

The role of spatial dynamics in the stability, resilience, and productivity of an estuarine fish population.

Understanding mechanisms that support long-term persistence of populations and sustainability of productive fisheries is a priority in fisheries management. Complex spatial structure within populations is increasingly viewed as a result of a plastic behavioral response that can have consequences for the dynamics of a population. We incorporated spatial structure and environmental forcing into a population model to examine the consequences for population stability (coefficient of variation of spawning-stock biomass), resilience (time to recover from disturbance), and productivity (spawning-stock biomass). White perch (Morone americana) served as a model species that exhibits simultaneous occurrence of migratory and resident groups within a population. We evaluated the role that contingents (behavioral groups within populations that exhibit divergent life histories) play in mitigating population responses to unfavorable environmental conditions. We used age-structured models that incorporated contingent-specific vital rates to simulate population dynamics of white perch in a sub-estuary of Chesapeake Bay, USA. The dynamics of the population were most sensitive to the proportion of individuals within each contingent and to a lesser degree to the level of correlation in recruitment between contingents in their responses to the environment. Increased representation of the dispersive contingent within populations resulted in increased productivity and resilience, but decreased stability. Empirical evidence from the Patuxent River white perch population was consistent with these findings. A high negative correlation in resident and dispersive contingent recruitment dynamics resulted in increased productivity and stability, with little effect on resilience. With high positive correlation between contingent recruitments, the model showed similar responses in population productivity and resilience, but decreased stability. Because contingent structure involves differing patterns of nursery habitat use, spatial management that conserves sets of habitats rather than the single most productive nursery habitat would be expected to contribute to long-term population stability.