JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH | VOLUME 5 | NUMBER 2 | PAGES 145-173 | 1983
© Oxford University Press
research-article |
The relations between larval fishes and zooplankton in two inshore areas of the Gulf of Maine
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences McKown Point, West Boothbay Harbor, ME 04575, USA
Received on May 1, 1982; accepted on October 1, 1982 Larval fishes and zooplankton were sampled in two hydrographically different areas on the coast of the Gulf of Maine: Sullivan Harbor, an embayment in eastern Maine, and the Damariscotta River estuary in western Maine. Sampling was conducted at weekly intervals from late winter to early summer in each area in 1979 and 1980. Phytoplankton chlorophyll concentrations were determined in each area in 1979. The time of peak catch rates of the dominant larval fish species occurred one to three weeks earlier in the western sample area, the Damariscotta estuary, than in Sullivan Harbor in the east. The phytoplankton and zooplankton blooms also occurred one to three weeks earlier in the Damariscotta estuary than in Sullivan Harbor. These timing trends are believed to result from the differences in the seasonal hydrographic changes of the inshore and coastal source waters. Analyses of the feeding, length-frequencies, and condition factors of the dominant larval fish species, Pholis gunnellus, are used to relate the apparent survival of the larvae to the timing of appearance of their forage organisms, the dynamics of which are determined by the local hydrography and resultant phytoplankton dynamics.