Migratory flexibility in native Hawai'ian amphidromous fishes

Abstract

We assessed the prevalence of life history variation across four of the five native amphidromous Hawai'ian gobioids to determine whether some or all exhibit evidence of partial migration. Analysis of otolith Sr.: Ca concentrations affirmed that all are amphidromous and revealed evidence of partial migration in three of the four species. We found that 25% of Lentipes concolor (n = 8), 40% of Eleotris sandwicensis (n = 20) and 29% of Stenogobius hawaiiensis (n = 24) did not exhibit a migratory life-history. In contrast, all individuals of Sicyopterus stimpsoni (n = 55) included in the study went to sea as larvae. Lentipes concolor exhibited the shortest mean larval duration (LD) at 87 days, successively followed by E. sandwicensis (mean LD = 102 days), S. hawaiiensis (mean LD = 114 days) and S. stimpsoni (mean LD = 120 days). These findings offer a fresh perspective on migratory life histories that can help improve efforts to conserve and protect all of these and other at-risk amphidromous species that are subject to escalating anthropogenic pressures in both freshwater and marine environments.

Description

Keywords

hawaiian, amphidromous, amphidromous fishes

Sponsorship

This study was funded through a National Science Foundation doctoral dissertation improvement grant (DEB 1310962) to Kristine N. Moody; Department of Defence strategic environmental research and development program awards RC 1646, RC-2447 to Michael J. Blum, James F. Gilliam, J. Derek Hogan and Peter B. McIntyre, NSF grant IOS-0817794 to Richard W. Blob and Margaret B. Ptacek and NSF grant IOS-0817911 to Heiko L. Schoenfuss and Matthew L. Julius.

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Citation

Heim‐Ballew, H., Moody, K.N., Blum, M.J., McIntyre, P.B. and Hogan, J.D., 2020. Migratory flexibility in native Hawai'ian amphidromous fishes. Journal of Fish Biology, 96(2), pp.456-468.