Abstract
Abstract Previous work with centrarchid fishes suggests that recruitment success is higher for fish hatched early in the spawning season. Similar recruitment patterns have been shown for bluegills Lepomis macrochirus, but only in piscivore-free waters and at the northern extent of their range. We investigated the role of predation and first-winter mortality in governing bluegill recruitment. Spawning date distributions for larval bluegills taken in ichthyoplankton tows were compared with distributions for juveniles in shoreline rotenone samples from the fall and the following spring. Daily otolith rings were used to determine ages and spawning dates for bluegills in Ridge Lake, Illinois, during 3 years. Spawning took place from mid-May to mid-August of each year and produced several peaks in larval abundance. Differences between the spawning date distributions of larval bluegills and juveniles surviving to fall suggested that fish spawned early in the season experienced higher mortality than those spawned...
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