SHOALING AND SCHOOLING

Shoaling And Schooling

Abstract

The bay anchovy Anchoa mitchilli is one of the most abundant marine fishes in the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico (Hildebrand & Schroeder 1928, Bigelow & Schroeder 1953). Bay anchovy are little, schooling planktivores that live at pelagic waters in environments extending from reduced salinity estuaries to the continental shelf.

Introduction

Background

Along the US east seaboard area, generating usually happens in the estuary and expands from roughly May to September (Vouglitois et al. 1987, Luo & Musick 1991, Zastrow et al. 1991) with top generating undertaking normally happening in mid-summer that may be nearly affiliated with peaks in nourishment plenty (Castro & Cowen 1991).



Overall Goal

The over all goal is to An Investigation of the Impacts of Current on Shoaling Behavior in umba pygmaea and Fundulus majalis.

General description of study area

In estuaries, large figures of young-of-the-year embayment anchovy happen throughout summer and early drop, and constitute the most of estuarine community biomass (Vouglitois et al. 1987, Newberger & Houde 1995). Relatively high abundances of multiple juvenile cohorts are generally present in east seaboard area estuaries through October before fish migrate to continental ledge waters to overwinter. Bay anchovy are accepted to be an significant trophic connection in estuarine nourishment webs (Luo & Brandt 1993, Wang & Houde 1995).

Description of experimental methods

Post-larval embayment anchovy are preyed upon by some species of piscivorous fishes, encompassing bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix, with stripes bass Morone saxatilis, weakfish Cynoscion regalis, and summer flounder Paralichthys dentatus (Poole 1964, Schaefer 1970, Manooch 1973, Merriner 1975, Friedland et al. 1988, Juanes et al. 1993, Hartman & Brandt 1995, Juanes & Conover 1995, Buckel et al. 1999a,b, Buckel & Mc- Kown in press). In detail, Baird & Ulanowicz (1989) suggested that embayment anchovy may assist up to 60 to 90% of the eating sparingly ...