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The Spawning Run of Blueback Herring in the St. Johns River, Florida

The Spawning Run of Blueback Herring in the St. Johns River, Florida

Authors :
Julianne E. Harris
Jay C. Holder
Richard S. McBride
A. Reid Hyle
Source :
Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 139:598-609
Publication Year :
2010
Publisher :
Wiley, 2010.

Abstract

Blueback herring Alosa aestivalis are anadromous, iteroparous, winter spawners in the St. Johns River, Florida, but published data about this population are limited. We collected adults by electrofishing in the upper St. Johns River during the 2002–2005 spawning runs to examine the abundance, distribution, size, sex ratio, reproductive biology, and feeding habits of the population. When possible, data from the present study were compared with those for blueback herring collected with seine nets in the lower St. Johns River during the 1972 and 1973 spawning runs. Blueback herring began upstream migration by January and stayed in the river until at least April. The average fish size was significantly smaller in 2002–2005 than in 1972–1973, but sex ratios were not different from 1:1 in 5 of the 6 years studied. The more recent collections suggest that blueback herring females released multiple batches of eggs during one spawning season (spawning a batch every 3–4 d on average) and that spawning occu...

Details

ISSN :
15488659 and 00028487
Volume :
139
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........7430ba402d664731e57fe715203f19ff
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1577/t09-068.1