Effects of Maternal Growth on Fecundity and Egg Quality of Wild and Captive Atka Mackerel

Abstract

Trade‐offs in energy allocation between growth and reproduction can result in variations in reproductive potential in fish with differing growth patterns. Spawning biomass is often used as a proxy for reproductive potential on the assumption that fecundity is directly proportional to body weight. We examined variations in the reproductive potential of Atka mackerel Pleurogrammus monopterygius by studying the effect of differential growth and condition patterns on fecundity, atresia, and egg energy. Fecundity and egg energy were determined for fish from two geographic areas, Seguam Pass and Amchitka Island, Alaska, and compared with those of fish held in captivity. These Atka mackerel showed distinct differences in growth and condition, with weight at length and length at age being the highest among captive fish, intermediate among fish from Seguam Pass, and lowest among fish from Amchitka Island. Realized fecundity showed that on average captive fish spawned seven batches, fish from Seguam Pass six batches, and fish from Amchitka Island five batches. For wild fish, potential and realized fecundity at length or age was significantly higher at Seguam Pass than at Amchitka Island, whereas the fecundity‐at‐weight relationship did not differ by area, suggesting that weight is a better predictor of fecundity than length or age. Atresia and batch fecundity by length or weight did not differ by area, suggesting that the variation in fecundity is better explained by the variation in batch number than by batch size. Oocyte dry weight was higher for captive fish than for wild fish, whereas batch order did not significantly affect oocyte dry weight. Increased potential fecundity, realized fecundity, and oocyte quality in Atka mackerel females were strongly related to body size, indicating that growth differences and maternal feeding success impact the fecundity and oocyte quality of Atka mackerel. Therefore, changes in growth and condition patterns need to be taken into account to accurately estimate the reproductive potential of this species. Received August 21, 2010; accepted March 2, 2011

Size, fecundity and condition factor changes in endangered delta smelt Hypomesus transpacificus over 10 generations in captivity

“…Cultured fish were longer, heavier and were more fecund than the wild fish. Similar results in other species have also shown cultured fish grew faster than the wild ones, such as western ruivaco Achondrostoma occidentale (Mameri et al, 2018), Atka mackerel Pleurogrammus monopterygius (McDermott et al, 2011), steelhead Oncorhynchus mykiss (Kostow, 2004), Atlantic salmon (Blanchet et al, 2008), gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata (Grigorakis et al, 2002) and brown trout (Hedenskog et al, 2002). O'Sullivan et al (2020) showed that the fecundity of cultured Atlantic salmon was approximately 1.4 times higher than wild ones.…”

Otolith shape variations between artificially stocked and autochthonous pikeperch (Sander lucioperca)

“…Many stock assessments studies neglect the share of stocked and wild fish in the population, which can create biases in the interpretation of the population parameters extracted for the whole metapopulation. For instance, a higher survival and cumulative dominance of stocked fish in the population could wrongly indicate an accelerated somatic growth rate and early maturation of fish in the population, given that fish in captivity often grow faster and mature earlier than wild individuals (McDermott et al, 2011;Zupa et al, 2017), which is not possible to see in this study due to the selection of wild fish with comparable sizes with the stocked individuals to avoid the bias of the presence of slower and much smaller fish in the wild group (van Densen and Vijverberg, 1982). This option allow us to compare individuals with more similar conditions, because the slow growing pikeperch are in fact much smaller than the fast growing individuals in the studied area (Jůza et al, 2013), but refrain us from assessing the full spectrum of otolith shapes in the wild population.…”

Biología reproductiva del pargo de la mancha Lutjanus guttatus (Teleostei: Lutjanidae) de la ensenada de Búcaro, borde externo de la ecorregión Panamá

“…Las hembras de L. guttatus empiezan a madurar sus ovocitos en octubre y desovan entre noviembre y enero, reflejado en el aumento de individuos en los estadios III y IV. Posterior al desove los organismos se preparan para producir nuevas células reproductoras a partir de enero (estadios I y II), lo que coincide con lo que reportan Rojas (1996Rojas ( -1997 La fecundidad de los peces se relaciona con el proceso de vitelogénesis y con las variables morfométricas (McDermontt et al, 2011;Eraso et al, 2017), esto último se constata en el presente estudio, por la correlación positiva, débilmente significativa, entre el peso de los individuos y el peso de la gónada.…”