The associations were quantified between daily and interannual variation in the timing of a closed population of lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens migration and arrival at spawning sites with stream environmental and lunar covariates. Spawning data were gathered from 1262 fish in Black Lake, Michigan 2001 to 2008 and by video monitoring 2000 to 2002. Sex-specific variation in responses to exte...

Fatty acid composition of eggs affects development, growth and ecological performance of fish embryos and larvae, with potential consequences for recruitment success. Essential fatty acids in eggs derive from the maternal diet, and the time between ingestion and deposition in eggs is ecologically important but unknown. We examined the dynamics of diet-egg transfer of arachidonic acid (ARA) in t...

The synchrony of spawning is of paramount importance to successful coral reproduction. The precise timing of spawning is thought to be controlled by a set of interacting environmental factors, including regional wind field patterns, timing of the sunset, and sea surface temperatures (SST). Climate change is resulting in increased SST, which is causing physiological stress in corals and could al...

Although individuals in many Wsh species move to shallow waters to spawn, the California grunion (Leuresthes tenuis) is almost unique in its constitutive display of synchronous full-emergence beach spawning. During a spawning event, Wsh ride large waves onshore to spawn on beach land, where their eggs incubate terrestrially. Here, we employ molecular markers to ascertain how this unusual reprod...

Combined analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and microsatellite loci were performed to assess the genetic differentiation of two spring-spawning ciscoes from each other and from sympatric Coregonus albula in two German lakes. Polymorphism was screened at six microsatellite loci and mtDNA for a total of 247 and 94 ciscoes, respectively. Microsatellite data showed a weak differentiation between...

When organisms release gametes into the sea, synchrony must be precise to increase fertilization and decrease hybridization. We tagged and genotyped over 400 spawning corals from the three species in the Montastraea annularis species complex. We report on the influence of species, individuals, and genotypes on timing of spawning from 2002 through 2009. During their annual spawning event M. fran...

The reproductive biology of the only known intact species flock of large cyprinids, the 16 Labeobarbus species of Lake Tana (Ethiopia), has been extensively studied for the past two decades. Seven species of Labeobarbus are known to migrate >50 km upstream into tributary rivers for spawning during the rainy season (July to October), whereas eight other species are absent from these rivers and p...

Bacteria associated with three coral species, Acropora tenuis, Pocillopora damicornis and Tubastrea faulkneri, were assessed before and after coral mass spawning on Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. Two colonies of each species were sampled before and after the mass spawning event and two additional samples were collected for P. damicornis after planulation. A variable 470 bp region of the 16...

Phenotypic differences between populations often correlate with climate variables, resulting from a combination of environment-induced plasticity and local adaptation. Species comprising populations that are genetically adapted to local climatic conditions should be more vulnerable to climate change than those comprising phenotypically plastic populations. Assessment of local adaptation general...