Momma's larvae: Maternal oceanographic experience and larval size influence early survival of rockfishes

Identifying factors that affect larval mortality is critical for understanding the drivers of fish population dynamics. Although larval fish mortality is high, small changes in mortality rates can lead to large changes in recruitment. Recent studies suggest maternal provisioning can dramatically affect the susceptibility of larvae to starvation and predation, the major sources of early-life mortality. We measured otolith core width-at-extrusion and validated that this is a proxy for larval size-at-extrusion for eight species of rockfishes (genus Sebastes) to examine the influence of initial larval size on larval growth and survival and to understand how oceanographic conditions experienced by gestating females affect larval size (i.e., quality). Otolith core width-at-extrusion was significantly positively related to larval rockfish recent growth rate (5/7 species with sufficient sample size) and survival (all eight species). This suggests that individuals that are larger at extrusion ge..., Sample collection 
Rockfish larvae were collected during winter CalCOFI cruises from 1998 to 2013 as described in Thompson et al. (2017). Winter cruises take place in January-February with the majority (72–98%) of larval rockfish collected in January (Table 1). Bongo nets were deployed at fixed stations to 210 m and obliquely towed to the surface at a constant rate (Kramer 1972; Figure 1).  Plankton from the port-side net was initially preserved in 95% ethanol and changed for fresh 95% ethanol after 24 hours. In the laboratory, rockfish larvae were sorted and enumerated from stations over the continental shelf (inside yellow polygon figure 1). Because most rockfish larvae are not morphologically distinguishable to the species level, the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene was sequenced from each individual larva using DNA extracted from rockfish tissue (see Thompson et al. 2017 for details on sequencing), and identities were determined by comparing larval sequence to reference sequences fro..., , This README file was generated on 2023-10-20 by Will Fennie

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Title of Dataset: Momma's larvae: maternal oceanographic experience and larval size influence early survival of rockfishes
2. Author Information
A. Corresponding Author Contact Informatino
Name: Will Fennie
Insititution: NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
Address: Seattle, WA
Email: [e-mail]
3. Date of collection: Fall 1997 - Winter 2013
4. Geographic location of collection: Southern California Bight, California, USA
5. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: Future Seas (NOAA Climate and Fisheries Adaptation Program grant number NA20OAR4310507), and CCE LTER (NSF OCE-2224726).

SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION

1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain
2. Links to publications that cite or use the data:

Thompson, A. R., Hyde, J. R., Watson, W., Chen, D. C., & Guo, L. W. (2016). Rockfish as...