Resumen del producto

The nursery areas of the dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus and C. equiselis in the eastern central Pacific Ocean are identified based on larvae sampled with Manta (surface) net tows in seven (1987-1990 and 1998-2000) NOAA Fisheries cruises to the eastern Pacific warm pool. Over the 7 years, 1317 Manta tow stations were completed, from which 388 include 799 larvae of C. equiselis and 298 larvae of C. hippurus. To analyze the interannual variability of their abundance and spatial distribution, the annual relative abundance (ARB) of the dolphinfish larvae (larvae • 100 m-3 of filtered water) were mapped, characterizing their thermal preferences using concomitant remotely sensed sea surface temperature (SST). Both species had patchy distributions because more than 90% of the stations showed low larval densities, whereas in some isolated spots the recorded abundances were high. Model variograms for both species indicated that most of the variance at the scale sampled is spatially unstructured and that their preferences for waters with the SST between 19.7 and 29.8 °C is similar for both species (mean SST = 27.3 °C). The spatial distribution maps showed that C. equiselis has an oceanic distribution with latitudinal changes in the ARB, in contrast to C. hippurus with a more coastal distribution and a nonlatitudinal pattern. These results allowed us to relate the ARB to a multivariate ENSO index (MEI). The ARB of C. equiselis showed a similar interannual variation pattern as the MEI with a lag of one year, whereas no pattern was found for C. hippurus (Speraman'correlation of -0.86 for C. equiselis and -0.07 for C hippurus).

Palabras clave: cephalopod; Engraulis mordax; Distribution; Dolphinfish

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