Life-history traits of the Magellan plunderfish Harpagifer bispinis (Forster, 1801) in the Beagle Channel (Tierra del Fu
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Life‑history traits of the Magellan plunderfish Harpagifer bispinis (Forster, 1801) in the Beagle Channel (Tierra del Fuego, South America) Facundo M. Llompart1,2 · Daniel A. Fernández1,2 · Daniel Aureliano1 · Mario La Mesa3 Received: 19 December 2019 / Revised: 5 August 2020 / Accepted: 14 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The Magellan plunderfish Harpagifer bispinis is a small and benthic sub-Antarctic notothenioid commonly found in shallow waters of the Beagle Channel, whose biology is poorly known. Based on a seasonal sampling conducted throughout a year, we provide original data on some biological parameters, such as reproductive traits and age structure. The sampled population of Magellan plunderfish was sex balanced, showing no dimorphism in fish size and isometric body growth. Macroscopic and histological analyses of gonads enabled us to infer that this species is a total spawner, with a single annual spawning season during the austral winter. Total fecundity was considerably low (mean of 574 eggs per female), even compared with other harpagiferids. Based on daily increment counts made in juveniles, larval hatching took place between late September and early October, likely enhancing their survival during the warmer months. The Von Bertalanffy growth parameters, estimated from the length-at-age data pairs for the whole population, were L∞ = 80.7 (± 0.82), K = 0.25 (± 0.01), and t0 = − 2.31. The estimated growth performance (3.21) and life span (7 years) of H. bispinis were both comparable to those reported for their most closely related species, H. antarcticus. The life-history traits of Magellan plunderfish are discussed from an ecological and evolutionary perspective, through a comparative approach with their Antarctic counterparts. Keywords Harpagiferids · Reproduction · Age and growth · Patagonia
Introduction Harpagiferidae is a monophyletic family (Derome et al. 2002; Near and Cheng 2008) that includes a single genus (Harpagifer) and between 10 and 12 species according to different authors (Duhamel et al. 2014; Eastman and Eakin 2016; Eschmeyer et al. 2019). Harpagiferids are the smallest fish among notothenioids ranging between 5.7 and 11 cm of total length (Eastman 2019), and are distributed in shallow waters between 0 and 320 m depth (Eastman 2017). They are * Facundo M. Llompart [email protected] 1
Instituto de Ciencias Polares, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (ICPA), Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego (UNTDF), Fuegia Basket 251, V9410BXE Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego AIAS, Argentina
2
Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Bernardo A Houssay 200, V9410BXE Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego AIAS, Argentina
3
ISP-Istituto di Scienze Polari, c/o Area della Ricerca di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
ecologically and morphologically similar species (Eastman 2005) that inhabit marine benthic/epibenthic environments at both sides of the Antarctic Polar Front (APF). However, most of the
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