Abstract
The aim of this work was to describe the growth of Cottoperca trigloides, a notothenioid species with a non-Antarctic distribution, and to test the existence of different nursery areas and fish stocks through changes in the otolith elemental composition. Fish were collected during spring 2009 over the Patagonia continental shelf, including the Marine Protected Area Namuncura/Burdwood Bank, in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. The age and growth analysis were performed by counting marks in sagittae, assuming an annual periodicity of their deposition, and identified 8-year classes (0+ to 7+). Given the size range of the fish, length-at-age data were fitted to the Gompertz growth model TLt = 55.45 [exp ((exp) -0.32 (t – 1.89))], explaining more than 95% of the growth pattern. Moreover, the chemical composition of otolith core and edge areas was analyzed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The canonical analysis of principal coordinates successfully allocated 72.92% of the fish for the core and 91.67% for the edge area of the otolith, in three groups corresponding to ‘northern Patagonia shelf’, ‘southern Patagonia shelf’ and ‘Marine Protected Area Namuncura/Burdwood Bank’ areas, suggesting a high segregation among them over the Patagonian shelf. Thus, otolith elemental composition has proven to be an efficient approach to identify different nursery areas and stocks for the species. Present results provide new information on the growth and the population structure of C. trigloides, from a geographical area where information on this issue is still scarce, constituting an essential tool to develop conservation principles for the species.
Highlights
Cottoperca trigloides (Forster, 1801) is the unique species of the family Bovichtidae (Balushkin, 2000; Eastman and Eakin1, version December 30, 2019), the members of which are atypical notothenioids in having a largely non-Antarctic distribution (Eastman, 1993)
Studies performed in the Beagle Channel indicated that C. trigloides lives in association with the holdfast of Macrocystis pyrifera kelp forest (Vanella et al, 2007), in accordance with their low buoyancy (Fernández et al, 2012)
In line with previous studies, we aimed to describe the growth of an extra-Antarctic notothenioid species, C. trigloides, and to test the existence of different nursery areas and fish stocks, corresponding to the “northern Patagonia shelf,” “southern Patagonia shelf,” and “Marine Protected Area (MPA) Namuncurá/Burdwood Bank” areas along the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, by using otolith chemistry
Summary
Cottoperca trigloides (Forster, 1801) is the unique species of the family Bovichtidae (Balushkin, 2000; Eastman and Eakin, version December 30, 2019), the members of which are atypical notothenioids in having a largely non-Antarctic distribution (Eastman, 1993) This species has been reported from 41◦ to 54◦S over the southeastern Pacific and the southwestern Atlantic Oceans (the Patagonian region of Chile and Argentina), including the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, the Burdwood Bank, the Staten Island, and the Malvinas/Falklands Islands (Lloris and Rucabado, 1991; Fernández et al, 2009). At present there is an important stimulus to study the life history traits and the ecology of C. trigloides to protect and apply conservation principles to the species
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