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Life history traits of Notothenia rossii and N. coriiceps along the southern Scotia Arc

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Abstract

Notothenia coriiceps and Notothenia rossii are two widespread nototheniid fishes, that live sympatrically along the southern Scotia Arc from South Georgia to the South Shetland Islands. In this sector of the Southern Ocean, they experienced different exploitation rates in the past and exhibit different habitat and food preferences as adult. Aiming to evaluate the influence of these factors in shaping life history traits of these species, we compare the reproductive investment and the age structure between the species and in N. rossii, between populations inhabiting different areas. Based on histological analyses, the two species share the same pattern of gamete development in both sexes. The potential fecundity was similar and was positively related to fish size in both species, being relatively high with respect to other notothenioids and in terms of egg size at deposition. Based on sagittal otolith readings, the growth rate and maximum age recorded differed significantly between the two species. Notothenia rossii exhibited a higher growth rate and a comparatively lower maximum age than N. coriiceps. Similarly, N. rossii attained sexual maturity at the same age but at a larger size than N. coriiceps. At the intraspecific level, no differences in life history traits were observed between the populations of N. rossii collected from different areas. Consistent with the different levels of fishing pressure exerted on these species and their low resilience, a recent significant decrease over time in the maximum fish size and related reproductive potential has been observed only in the overexploited populations of N. rossii.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung that provided us the opportunity to collect samples during two RV Polarstern expeditions, ANT-XXVII/3 and ANT-XXVIII/4. Thanks to all the scientific staff, crew members and personnel aboard the RV Polarstern for their essential support in sampling activities. A special thanks to F. Giomi and F. Bartolini for providing gonad and otolith samples of N. rossii from South Georgia (ANT XXVII/3). We are in debit with C. Papetti for her valuable help during samples collection in South Shetland Islands, with C. Sands, P. Brickle and two anonymous referees for the helpful revision of the manuscript. This research was supported by the Italian National Program for Antarctic Research (PNRA) to MLM and MIUR (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universita` e della Ricerca) to CM.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Padova, Via U. Bassi 58/B, 35131, Padova, Italy

    Federico Calì, Emilio Riginella & Carlotta Mazzoldi

  2. ISMAR-CNR, Institute of Marine Sciences, UOS Ancona, Largo Fiera della Pesca 1, 60125, Ancona, Italy

    Emilio Riginella & Mario La Mesa

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  1. Federico Calì
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  2. Emilio Riginella
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Correspondence to Carlotta Mazzoldi.

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Calì, F., Riginella, E., La Mesa, M. et al. Life history traits of Notothenia rossii and N. coriiceps along the southern Scotia Arc. Polar Biol 40, 1409–1423 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-016-2066-z

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