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Integrating Multiple Natural Tags to Link Migration Patterns and Resource Partitioning Across a Subtropical Estuarine Gradient

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Abstract

Establishing links between migration patterns and trophic dynamics is paramount to ecological studies investigating the functional role habitats provide to resident and transient species. Natural tags in fishes, such as otolith chemistry and tissue stable isotopes, can help reconstruct previous environmental and dietary histories, although these approaches are rarely combined. A novel multiproxy natural tag approach was developed to estimate immigration patterns of juvenile Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus, across contrasting salinity gradients in three subtropical estuaries of the western Gulf of Mexico. Juvenile young-of-year Atlantic croaker were collected along a latitudinal gradient that included positive, neutral, and negative estuaries, based on physicochemical (temperature, salinity, dissolved element) and isotopic (δ15N and δ13C) parameters. Otolith elemental chronologies of Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca were used to classify migratory types within each estuary, while tissue-specific isotope ratios revealed time since recent (liver~weeks) and longer term (muscle~months) diet shifts. Nitrogen isotopes in both liver and muscle tissues were highly correlated, suggesting tissue equilibrium and estuarine residence of at least 3 months, with geographic δ15N gradients reflecting the magnitude of anthropogenic nutrient enrichment within each estuary. Differences in isotopic equilibrium of muscle-liver δ13C values and variation in marginal edge otolith Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca suggested recent shifts in carbon source and habitat utilization, reflecting individualized movement across seascapes and connectivity of habitat mosaics. The multiproxy approach presented here identified diverse migration patterns and linked feeding and movement on regional (inter-estuary), local (intra-estuary), and individual scales to improve our understanding of habitat function across estuarine gradients.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Texas Water Development Board and S. Negusse for providing salinity data; Texas Parks Wildlife Department including F. Grubbs, Z. Olsen, N. Ahrens, B. Grimmett, B. Balboa, and M. Fisher for providing samples; and J. Ripley, N. Miller, and B. Hendrickson for help with sample analysis. Two anonymous reviewers and Associate Editor M.D. Taylor greatly improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas Marine Science Institute, 750 Channel View Drive, Port Aransas, TX, 78373, USA

    John A. Mohan & Benjamin D. Walther

  2. Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, 1001 Texas Clipper Road, Galveston, TX, 77554, USA

    John A. Mohan

  3. Department of Life Sciences, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, 6300 Ocean Drive, Unit 5858, Corpus Christi, TX, 78412, USA

    Benjamin D. Walther

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  1. John A. Mohan
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Correspondence to John A. Mohan.

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Communicated by Matthew D. Taylor

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Mohan, J.A., Walther, B.D. Integrating Multiple Natural Tags to Link Migration Patterns and Resource Partitioning Across a Subtropical Estuarine Gradient. Estuaries and Coasts 41, 1806–1820 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-018-0385-8

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