Embryonic development of the bullseye puffer Sphoeroides annulatus (Tetraodontidae): A morphofunctional approach to ontogenetic steps

Abstract

The embryonic development of the bullseye puffer, Sphoeroides annulatus, was characterized on the basis of the theory of saltatory ontogeny. This theory predicts a correlative relationship between the ontogeny‐type in an altricial‐precocial spectrum and the habitat that a species occupies within an unstable‐stable environmental spectrum. Because S. annulatus inhabits a variety of unstable environments along a wide latitudinal range, the hypothesis that this species presents one of the most altricial embryonic developments among tetraodontids was tested. Based on major developmental events that marked the ontogenetic thresholds nine embryonic steps were identified. Developmental features such as small adhesives eggs, lack of vitelline circulation, small free embryos swimming up at hatching guided by positive phototaxis, and small first‐feeding larvae actively swam in the water column, suggest that S. annulatus belongs to the reproductive guild of the nonguarders‐lithopelagophils. Moreover, a comparative analysis of the developmental sequences, egg size, and first‐feeding larvae size between tetraodontids confirms the hypothesis of this study and supports the evolutionary principle of the altricial‐precocial spectrum postulated in the theory of saltatory ontogeny.

Biochemical composition and condition of wild blackfin snook Centropomus medius through the reproductive cycle

“…(Alvarez-Lajonchère & Tsuzuki 2008, Granados-Amores et al 2020, snapper, Lutjanus sp. (Ibarra-Castro & Duncan 2007, Spanopoulos-Zarco et al 2022, totoaba, Totoaba macdonaldi (González-Félix et al 2021), puffer fish Sphoeroides annulatus (Martínez-Brown et al 2019), almaco jack, Seriola rivoliana (Viader-Guerrero et al 2021) and the leopard grouper, Mycteroperca rosacea (Maldonado et al 2018).…”