The Life History and Ecology of Black Scabbardfish (Aphanopus Carbo Lowe 1839) in the North-East Atlantic
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UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available. Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks! Title The life history and ecology of black scabbardfish (Aphanopus carbo Lowe 1839) in the north-east Atlantic Author(s) Ribeiro Santos, Ana Publication date 2013 Original citation Ribeiro Santos, A. 2013. The life history and ecology of black scabbardfish (Aphanopus carbo Lowe 1839) in the north-east Atlantic. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2013, Ana Ribeiro Santos. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/1275 from Downloaded on 2021-10-07T22:12:56Z The Life History and Ecology of Black Scabbardfish (Aphanopus carbo Lowe 1839) in the North-east Atlantic Ana Maria Aranha Ribeiro Santos Thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences University College Cork Cork Ireland 4th January 2013 Head of School: Professor John O‘Halloran Academic Supervisors: Dr Emer Rogan and Dr Paul Connolly Dedicated to my mother, Mariana dos Santos Aranha 1 Contents Declaration 2 Acknowledgments 3 General Abstract 5 Chapter 1 - General Introduction 7 Chapter 2 - Oocyte dynamics and reproductive strategy of Aphanopus carbo 38 in the NE Atlantic – implications for fisheries management Chapter 3 - Age and growth of black scabbardfish, Aphanopus carbo (Lowe, 80 1839) in NE Atlantic using two different reading interpretations Chapter 4 - Trophic ecology of Black Scabbardfish, Aphanopus carbo in the NE Atlantic – Assessment through stomach content and stable 113 isotope analyses Chapter 5 - Otolith stable isotope analysis reveals large scale migration of 145 black scabbardfish in NE Atlantic Chapter 6 - Trends in Abundance, Distribution and Size structure of 169 Aphanopus carbo off the western British Isles Chapter 7 - General Discussion 196 2 Declaration The thesis submitted here is my own work and has not been submitted for another degree, either at University College Cork or elsewhere unless otherwise stated. Ana Ribeiro Santos 3 Acknowledgments This research was carried out under the Sea Change strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and the Marine Research Sub-programme of the National Development Plan 2007– 2013. Along these years several people have, in different ways, contributed to this thesis. Without them, this work would have been impossible to accomplish. Firstly I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Emer Rogan and Dr Paul Connolly for their support, guidance and trust during these years. I would like to express a special appreciation and gratitude to Dr Emer Rogan for being tireless in giving me precious comments that improved greatly the manuscript, especially during the last weeks of writing. I’m extremely thankful to the commercial French deep-water trawler Jack Abry II master, Xavier Leaute and all his crew who collaborated in collecting the fish for this study. Also thanks the masters and the crews of R/V Celtic Explorer, R/V Scotia and R/V Thalassa during my participation in the deep water surveys. A special thanks to Sara Reis, Sofia and all the staff from Direcção Regional de Pescas da Madeira for their invaluable help and collaboration on collecting biological information from Madeira. I thank to Brendan O’Hea from Marine Institute, for his help during the deep water surveys and with the Irish surveys historical data. I also thank to Francis Neat from Marine Scotland for permission to use the laboratory facilities in Aberdeen and to share the historical Scottish deep water surveys used for this thesis. Thanks to Imelda Hehir, Kieran, Marcin and all the staff from Marine Institute for their help during the endless ageing work. Thank you to all BEES technicians for all their help and support, particularly to Allen Whitaker, Liz Cotter and Luke Harman. I also thank to Gema Hernandez-Milian, Dr Jim Drewery and Dr Malcom Clarke for the assistance with the identification of fish otoliths, crustaceans remains and cephalopods beaks, respectively. I further thank you to Clive Trueman for sharing with me his enthusiasm and knowledge on stable isotope “world”, for his advice and comments on some of the chapters. I also thank to Coilin Minto for statistical advice. Would like to give a very special thanks to the new friends and colleagues I’ve made in Ireland, who will last forever and with whom I’ve shared some troubled and sad moments, but mostly 4 great laughs and great “craic”; Alice D’Arcy, Ciar O’Toole, Stefanie Broszeit, Moira McCarthy, Amy Haigh, Mark Wilson, Anneli Englund, Emily Baxter, Emer Morgan, Gema Hernandez- Millian, Brian O’Farrel, Barbara Doerr, Thomas Bastian, Mike Sturt and all the UCC post-grad students I’ve met during these years. I would like to give a special thank you to Tom Blasdale for his friendship, advice and help since the beginning, in those long trips to Lochinver, helping in biological sampling until late hours during the deep water survey and lastly, for his valuable comments in some of the chapters. A very special thanks is going to Rui Catarino, Patricia Teixeira, Ana Catarina Aires for their immense friendship, help with carrying fish boxes and for sharing their house during my stays in Aberdeen. And for these last three hectic months, I thank to the new and old friends in CEFAS. Special thanks to Ana Leocadio and Antonio Pliru for their help with ArcGIS and for listening; to Oliver Williams and Rachel Becket for their friendship and cooking! Also thank to Dr Tom Catchpole and Dr Peter Randall for being so flexible at work, allowing me to finish on time! I also thank to Dr Andy Payne for reviewing and comment one of the chapters. Finally, I would like to thank to my family for their support, patience, comprehension and especially to my dad for his supportive and encouragement words during all these years, particularly in times when was so hard to be far away. 5 General abstract The black scabbardfish is a deep water species that supports commercial fisheries across a large area of the NE Atlantic shelf. The life history of black scabbardfish is poorly understood and a major unresolved issue is population structure. In this study it was used a combination of methodologies to get further knowledge in the life history and population structure of A. carbo over its wide distribution range in the Northeast Atlantic. The new knowledge acquired during this study, will increase our ability to better manage this species in the NE Atlantic. It has been postulated that fish caught to the west of the British Isles are pre-adults that migrate further south (to Madeira) for spawning, implying a single panmictic population. In this study, specimens of Aphanopus carbo were sampled between September 2008 and May 2010 from two different areas: NW Scotland (French trawlers and deep water surveys) and Madeira Islands (longliners commercial landings). Geographical differences in reproductive state of scabbardfish were evident, supportive of a north-south migration theory. In the northern area, all specimens found were immature, while in Madeira all maturity stages were observed. In Madeira, spawning occurred during the fourth quarter, with peak maturity in October (males) and in November (females). The age of this species has proven difficult and has led to different and contradictory age and growth estimates. For this study, we used two reading interpretations to determine age and estimate the growth parameters. To the west of the British Isles, specimens reached a lower maximum age and had a higher growth rate than those caught off Madeira. These differences are consistent with the theory of a single population of black scabbardfish in the NE Atlantic, highly segregate, with smaller, immature and younger fish caught to the west of the British Isles and bigger and mature caught in Madeira Islands. The feeding ecology showed strong evidence that the diet of black scabbardfish is associated with the spawning migration of blue whiting, which may support a northerly feeding migration theory for black scabbardfish. The stable isotope analyses in the muscle of black scabbardfish identified that black scabbardfish feeds on species with epipelagic and benthopelagic affinities. Comparison with stable isotope analysis in Madeira samples indicated that black scabbardfish 6 feed at a similar trophic level and has the same trophic niche width in both areas, assuming similar baseline isotope compositions. Otolith stable isotopes (oxygen - δ18O and nitrogen - δ15N) analyses were used as a tool to clarify migratory behaviour. Otolith isotope ratios can provide insight into whether adults caught around Madeira fed in an isotopically depleted northerly ecosystem (NW Scotland) during their pre-adult period and then migrate towards south to spawn. Overall, the results support a south- north migration of pre adult fish from spawning areas around Madeira and a north-south migration from the west of Scotland to the spawning areas. Given its life cycle there is an urgent need that the management process recognizes the existence of a continuous widely distributed stock of black scabbardfish between the west of the British Isles and Madeira. The results highlight large scale dispersal in this species which needs to be treated as a highly migratory species and be managed as a single population. 7 Chapter 1 General Introduction Contents 1.1 Deep sea fisheries ......................................................................................................................