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Spawning success and early life history of longnose suckers in G reat L akes tributaries
Author(s) -
Childress Evan S.,
Papke Rebecca,
McIntyre Peter B.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ecology of freshwater fish
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1600-0633
pISSN - 0906-6691
DOI - 10.1111/eff.12220
Subject(s) - tributary , larva , sucker , biology , fecundity , population , ecology , survivorship curve , life history , zoology , geography , demography , genetics , cartography , cancer , sociology
Abstract Fish eggs and larvae are often subject to very high mortality, and variation in early life survival can be important for population dynamics. Although longnose suckers ( C atostomus catostomus ) are widespread in northern N orth A merica, little is known about their early life history. We examined fecundity and early larval survivorship during sucker spawning events in three small L ake M ichigan tributaries. Although egg deposition varied 25% among spawning events, estimated larval export to the lake varied over 25,000‐fold from around 1000 to 26 million. Based on variation in environmental conditions across years, it appears that spring flow and temperature may be important determinants of egg survival to larval outmigration. Larval age data suggest that most individuals that survived to outmigration hatched during a 2‐day period despite adult spawning across at least 10 days. Most larvae spent <2 weeks in the stream and emigrated around the time of transition from endogenous to exogenous feeding before substantial growth occurred. In two of three cases, larvae drifted exclusively at night; however, high drift rates occurred during both day and night in the case where larvae were very abundant, suggesting density‐dependent drift behaviour. Our results indicate that survival in tributary streams from egg deposition to larval export is highly variable in longnose suckers. These large differences in early life survival may translate into variability in recruitment, thereby influencing population structure and dynamics.