Abstract
Quantifying the scale and importance of individual dispersion between populations and life stages is a key challenge in marine ecology. The common sole (Solea solea), an important commercial flatfish in the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, has a marine pelagic larval stage, a benthic juvenile stage in coastal nurseries (lagoons, estuaries or shallow marine areas) and a benthic adult stage in deeper marine waters on the continental shelf. To date, the ecological connectivity among these life stages has been little assessed in the Mediterranean. Here, such an assessment is provided for the first time for the Gulf of Lions, NW Mediterranean, based on a dataset on otolith microchemistry and stable isotopic composition as indicators of the water masses inhabited by individual fish. Specifically, otolith Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca profiles, and δ13C and δ18O values of adults collected in four areas of the Gulf of Lions were compared with those of young-of-the-year collected in different coastal nurseries. Results showed that a high proportion of adults (>46%) were influenced by river inputs during their larval stage. Furthermore Sr/Ca ratios and the otolith length at one year of age revealed that most adults (∼70%) spent their juvenile stage in nurseries with high salinity, whereas the remainder used brackish environments. In total, data were consistent with the use of six nursery types, three with high salinity (marine areas and two types of highly saline lagoons) and three brackish (coastal areas near river mouths, and two types of brackish environments), all of which contributed to the replenishment of adult populations. These finding implicated panmixia in sole population in the Gulf of Lions and claimed for a habitat integrated management of fisheries.
Highlights
One of the most challenging problems in marine ecology is to quantify the scale and magnitude of individual dispersion between populations and life stages [1]
The estimation of rates, temporal scales and spatial structures of individual exchanges between life stages or populations, known as ecological connectivity [10], is of prime importance to understand the replenishment of exploited fish populations, notably in a general context of stock declines [11,12]
The signatures of larval and juvenile stages in adult otoliths were mainly distributed in the 95% confidence ellipse achieved with YOY signatures (Figures 5A, B)
Summary
One of the most challenging problems in marine ecology is to quantify the scale and magnitude of individual dispersion between populations and life stages [1]. Most vagile coastal marine fish species achieve dispersion principally during their larval and juvenile lives, and show relatively small scale movements when adults [2] (but see[3]). The end of the juvenile stage, when individuals migrate out off nurseries to recruit into adult populations, represents a second dispersion opportunity for many species [9]. The success of both the larval and the juvenile stages contribute to the renewal of adult populations. The estimation of rates, temporal scales and spatial structures of individual exchanges between life stages or populations, known as ecological connectivity [10], is of prime importance to understand the replenishment of exploited fish populations, notably in a general context of stock declines [11,12]
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