Environmental influences on temporal patterns of settlement in two littoral labrid fishes in the Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

Correlations between daily fish settlement and environmental and physical parameters were examined during two consecutive years in two labrid species ( Symphodus roissali and Symphodus ocellatus) in the NW Mediterranean Sea. Both these species have a short planktonic larval duration (12±0.3 and 9±0.4 days, respectively) and limited offshore larval dispersal. Time-series analysis was used to compare the daily settlement patterns with various environmental variables, and non-linear generalized additive models (GAM) were used to examine the relationship between environmental conditions averaged over larval period and daily settlement patterns. Settlement was not uniform and took place as pulses of different length. Although the analyses detected a few significant correlations between day-to-day patterns in environmental variables and settlement (e.g. solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, daytime or nocturnal wind components), these were not consistent among years. In S. ocellatus, however, wind components (daytime or nighttime) explained part of the variance in settlement intensity. The correlations (GAM outputs) observed between settlement patterns and environmental variables (averaged during the whole planktonic period) suggest that calm weather during the planktonic period usually increases settlement success.