Distinguishing spring- and autumn-spawned herring larvae (Clupea harengus L.) by otolith microstructure
- 1 May 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in ICES Journal of Marine Science
- Vol. 48 (1) , 61-66
- https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/48.1.61
Abstract
The otolith microstructure from North Sea autumn-spawned herring larvae and Norwegian spring-spawned herring larvae is described. The distance from the nucleus to the hatch check is on average 1.5 μm longer in the spring-spawned larvae (11.6 μm) than in the autumn-spawned (10.1 μm), and the average increment size is larger. The greatest difference is observed in the zone between 20 and 60 increments from the nucleus. This corresponds to a distance of 20 to 60 μm from the nucleus in the autumn-spawned herring larvae and of 28 to 132 μm in the spring-spawned larvae. A combination of distance to the hatch check and increment size in otolith from 30 to 60 μ from the nucleus could be a valuable method of distinguishing between the progeny of spring- and autumn-spawning herring.Keywords
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: