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Estuarine dependency in a marine fish evaluated with otolith chemistry

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Abstract

Life-long strontium patterns in otoliths of the sciaenid Micropogonias furnieri caught in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean were examined to evaluate estuarine dependency and habitat use. Otolith Sr concentrations were on average 820 ± 55 μg g−1 for freshwater, 1,751 ± 101 μg g−1 for estuarine, and ranged from 2,000 to over 4,000 μg g−1 for marine waters. The examination of life-long otolith Sr revealed that 71 % of the marine-sampled fish moved toward brackish waters from age 0 to age 1, and that estuarine egress ranged from ages 2.1 to 4.1 years depending on the sampling area. Three different long-term patterns of Sr accumulation were observed and inferred to be the result of ontogeny and habitat shifts. Given that an estuarine Sr signature was consistently present in all sampled fish, M. furnieri is suggested to be a true estuarine-dependent species during its early life history.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by Petrobrás and CNPq and a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN 2076, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-0452325). C.Q. is currently a postdoctoral fellow (CAPES-PNPD No 02907/09-7) and J.H.M. receives a CNPq grant (Proc. 309181/2009-7). A special thanks to Dr. V. Bellotto (Center for Technology Earth and Ocean Science, UNIVALI), who prepared and provided the calibration standards used in this study and to Alvaro J. Pereira and Mauricio Dupin from PUC-Rio for his support in ICPMS and ICP OES measurements. The authors would also like to thank MSc. Martin Laporta for otolith collections at Uruguay. Drs. Manuel Haimovici and Jorge Pablo Castello kindly permitted us to use their low-speed saw for sample preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Oceanografia Ambiental, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    C. Q. Albuquerque

  2. Departmento de Química, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    N. Miekeley

  3. Instituto de Oceanografia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Brazil

    J. H. Muelbert

  4. Marine Science Institute, The University of Texas at Austin, Port Aransas, Austin, TX, 78373, USA

    B. D. Walther

  5. CIC-Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    A. J. Jaureguizar

  6. INIDEP-Instituto Nacional de Ivestigación y Desarollo Pesquero, Mar del Plata, Argentina

    A. J. Jaureguizar

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  1. C. Q. Albuquerque
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  2. N. Miekeley
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  3. J. H. Muelbert
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  4. B. D. Walther
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  5. A. J. Jaureguizar
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Correspondence to C. Q. Albuquerque.

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Communicated by D. Righton.

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Albuquerque, C.Q., Miekeley, N., Muelbert, J.H. et al. Estuarine dependency in a marine fish evaluated with otolith chemistry. Mar Biol 159, 2229–2239 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-012-2007-5

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