Acronym VITAL
Category
Fisheries
Title Vital rates of pelagic fish larvae Programme Nat. Programme (supported by ESIF)
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National-European Coordinator Carla Susana Ferreira Garrido Coelho Coordinator email garridosus@gmail.com
Coordinator institution
FFCUL - University of Lisbon; Foundation of the Faculty of Sciences (Portugal)
Institutions involved
CCMAR - Centre for Marine Sciences (Portugal) ,
ODL - Oceanário de Lisboa SA (Portugal) ,
ULisboa - University of Lisbon (Portugal) ,
CO-FCUL - University of Lisbon; Institute of Oceanography (Portugal) ,
Start year 2011 End year 2014 Funding (€) € 123,328 Website http://projectvital.fc.ul.pt/ Summary Small pelagic fish species such as sardines and anchovies prosper in the productive waters of upwelling ecosystems and have long supported large fisheries around the world [1]. Management of these fisheries is confounded by large variability in population size which is mainly attributed to recruitment variability [2]. In recent years, hydrodynamic models have been increasingly used to explore some of the complex interactions between physics and fish recruitment, and individual-based models (IBMs) are one of the most promising approaches [3]. IBMs can be used to explore environmental processes impacting the survival and growth of the organisms and can incorporate individual variability. For small pelagics it is thought that variations in the recruitment strength (year class success) are primarily driven by biological and/or physical factors impacting the early life history stages (eggs through to post-larvae) [4] and the recruitment models have focused on these life stages. However, the construction and parameterization of reliable recruitment models requires knowledge of how a hierarchy of factors affects the vital rates (growth and development) of fish early-life stages. In Iberian waters the dominant pelagic species are anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardines (Sardina pilchardus). Surprisingly, there are no data on the vital rates of the larvae of either species, although a large number of works refer to their necessity [5]. Models have either described larvae as inert particles e.g. [6], or used the data available for other species, e.g. Engraulis mordax [7]. These alternatives introduce strong biases that can only be solved by using species-specific bioenergetic parameters. The objective of this project is to obtain data on the vital rates of E. encrasicolus and S. pilchardus larvae in relation to differences in several key physical and biological factors considered most important for regulating their growth and survival. Laboratory experiments will be conducted to obtain parameters such as 1) the upper and lower physiological tolerance limits of temperature, salinity and food availability for larvae survival and their influence on larvae growth; 2) the ingestion rates of different prey types offered at different concentrations and at different temperatures and salinities simulating field values. The nutritional condition of larvae reared in the laboratory will be monitored and compared with larvae collected in the wild, validating combined techniques (fatty acids and RNA/DNA). The results of this project will be completely new given that there are no quantitative estimates of the vital rates for the larvae of these fish species under controlled laboratory conditions required for parameterizing recruitment models. The vital rate information obtained on small pelagic fish larvae will not only be useful when coupled to the hydrodynamic model already developed for the western Portuguese coast [13] but also in other regions. Efforts to build models describing environmental regulation of these species in other systems around the world (e.g., to examine links between climate and recruitment) are currently hampered by a lack of data. The seminal data collected here will, thus, be useful well beyond the lifetime and goals of the present, 3-yr study. Finally, quantifying potential differences of vital rates between the larvae of sardines and anchovies may advance our understanding of the regime-shifts observed worldwide, explaining why anchovy-favourable periods seem to alternate out of phase with those favourable for sardine [1]. The team of this project has ideal conditions to fulfil the objectives. The members of the team are experienced in successfully acclimatizing and conduct feeding behaviour experiments with sardine adults [8, 9, Fig.1], in growth and ingestion experiments of first-feeding anchovy larvae (Fig.1) and studying the physiology and ecology of small pelagic fish larvae, including their nutritional condition [10,11,12,13,14]. The Oceanário of Lisbon has world-recognized expertise in capture and maintenance of marine fish, offering excellent conditions for conducting the experiments. The consultant Dr. Enric Saiz, member of the Marine Zooplankton Ecology Group at the Institut de Ciències del Mar, Barcelona is well experienced in culturing marine copepods since mid 90s, and in studying copepod ecophysiology, specially feeding interactions with algae and protozoans and will help to feed the larvae with wild prey, which will result in better survival rates and ecologically meaningful results. In the former application of this project to FCT (PTDC/MAR/100146/2008) the referees suggested that this project should be resubmitted after the inclusion of an international consultant/s experienced in biology of populations. This was achieved by adding to the team Prof. Dr. Myron Peck, of the Institute for Hydrobiology and Fisheries Sciences of the University of Hamburg, with long expertise in the evaluation of the factors that affect larvae vital rates and their utilization in IBMs.
Keywords
Sardine;
Larval development;
Fish biology;
Fish;
Anchovy;
Life cycle;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
Marine Region Map
