Experimental test of environmental factors influencing the seaward migration of European silver eels

Abstract

In this study we test which environmental factors are influencing the migratory behaviour of seaward migrating silver European eets Anguilla anguilla in a Norwegian river. We test this by transplanting tagged silver eels upriver after catching them in a trap at the outlet of the river. We did this at four fixed dates (fixed day lengths) during 5 years. Over 74% of the variation in time from release to subsequent recapture could be accounted for by variation in time at release, water discharge at release, and moon phase at release (in decreasing order of importance). The number of days to median day of recapture of each batch decreased as the season progressed and decreased with increasing water discharge. Water temperature did not explain any of the remaining variation in the model, even if there was a significant correlation between water temperature at release and median day at recapture of each batch (in simple linear regression model). Recapture rate during the same migration season varied strongly with water temperature, but at most 33% of the variation could be explained by this factor. It was aiso evident that the recapture rate increased when the number of downward migrating untagged silver eels was high. Day length (i.e. time at release) did not explain any of the remaining variation in recapture rate.