Reproductive Status and Blood Plasma Indicators of Sex and Gonad Maturation Status for Yelloweye Rockfish Following Barotrauma and Recompression Events

Abstract

Discard mortality of rockfishes Sebastes spp. is a management concern along the West Coast of North America. Although many rockfish species survive after barotrauma and forced recompression, it is unclear whether these mechanisms affect reproductive success. We examined whether (1) Yelloweye Rockfish S. ruberrimus in Prince William Sound, Alaska, could reproduce up to 2 years after one or more barotrauma and recompression events; and (2) blood plasma indicators (i.e., vitellogenin [VTG] and calcium [Ca2+]) could be used to identify sex and gonad maturation stage. In 2010, we captured and examined Yelloweye Rockfish that had been tagged in 2008 and 2009, and all mature females were gravid or spent. The most common barotrauma sign was esophageal eversion, with females and males exhibiting this injury 50% and 90% of the time, respectively. All other injuries, except swim bladder ruptures and tears, occurred at low frequencies and (with the exception of esophageal eversion) increased in frequency with capture depth. Mean plasma VTG concentrations for females were greater than those for males; with the exception of stage‐0 females, there were no differences in VTG among female gestation stages. Mean plasma Ca2+ concentrations for stage‐2 females differed from those of males, stage‐0 recruits, and immature fish. However, there was no difference in mean Ca2+ among female reproductive stages. These results indicate that reproduction of Yelloweye Rockfish is not affected after barotrauma and recompression events and that blood plasma measures show variable success as indicators of sex and female reproductive status. Received March 16, 2016; accepted August 12, 2016 Published online September 30, 2016

Lifetime hormone profiles for a long-lived teleost: opercula reveal novel estimates of age-specific reproductive parameters and stress trends in yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus)

“…are based on other rockfish species in the Pacific and applied to female yelloweye rockfish ovarian cycle. Sources for time periods of operculum growth are (Panfili et al 2002), female yelloweye rockfish ovarian cycle (Arthur 2020), and circulating hormone concentrations are based off studies of reproductive biomarkers in yelloweye rockfish females (Blain and Sutton 2016) and direct measurement of seasonal estradiol and progesterone concentrations in serum of other female pregnant and non-pregnant rockfish species (Nagahama et al 1991;Xu et al 2021) in the Pacific due to no hormone data available on female yelloweye rockfish. Vertical dashed pink line represents first acceptable age of sexual maturity, 8 years, for reference.…”

“…Estradiol is vital for the production of the lipoprotein vitellogenin, which transports nutrients to growing oocytes (Pankhurst 2008(Pankhurst , 2016. Vitellogenin and estradiol concentrations in rockfish have been shown to discern between different female reproductive states (Haukenes et al 2008;Blain and Sutton 2016). Cortisol concentrations naturally increase in response to perceived stressors, including the reproductive season, and may play an important role in maturing oocytes of fish (Venkatesh et al 1990;Milla et al 2009).…”