W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1997 New Data on Ichthyoplankton of the SouthWestern Pacific andrei V. Suntsov College of William and Mary - Virginia Institute of Marine Science Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Marine Biology Commons, and the Oceanography Commons Recommended Citation Suntsov, andrei V., "New Data on Ichthyoplankton of the SouthWestern Pacific" (1997). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539617727. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.25773/v5-8ydy-5691 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NEW DATA ON ICHTHYOPLANKTON OF THE SOUTH WESTERN PACIFIC A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Marine Science The College of William and Mary In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Andrei V. Suntsov 1997 APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science '. Suntsov Approved, October 1997 John E. Olney, Ph. D. Committee Chairman/Advisor in M. Brubaker, Ph. D. H i / i / I Hugh WJ>fcklow, Ph. D. JohpA. Musick, Ph. D. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................vi LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................................ viii PREFACE..................................................................................................................................xi CHAPTER 1. Larvae and juveniles of Paradiplospinus antarcticus Andriashev, 1960 (Gempylidae) from the subantarctic waters of the Pacific ...................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION.................................................. 2 METHODS.....................................................................................................................4 GENERAL MORPHOLOGY AND MORPHOMETRICS ....................................... 7 COMPARATIVE NOTES.......................................................................................... 21 DISTRIBUTION..........................................................................................................24 LITERATURE CITED................................................................................................30 CHAPTER 2. Development ofAstronesthes sp. from the Subtropical Convergence region of the south western Pacific ....................................... 32 INTRODUCTION................................................... 33 METHODS................................ 35 RESULTS.....................................................................................................................37 iii DISCUSSION............................................................................................................ ..50 DISTRIBUTION................................................................................. 56 LITERATURE CITED................................................................................................57 CHAPTER 3. Ichthyoplankton assemblages in the south western Pacific ..............60 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................61 MATERIALS AND METHODS................................................................................65 RESULTS................................................................... 73 DISCUSSION.......................................... 125 LITERATURE CITED .............................................................................................130 APPENDIX.................................................................. 137 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to the chairman of my committee, Dr. John E. Olney for his guidance, patience and helpful criticism during the writing of the thesis. I would like to express my appreciation to my committee members Dr. John M. Brubaker, Dr. Hugh W. Ducklow, and Dr. John A. Musick for helpful suggestions and for critique of the manuscript. Special thanks are due to Dr. Sergei A. Evseenko (Institute of Oceanology, Russia) who first introduced me to the study of larval fishes and provided the material for this study. His advice, constructive criticism and insight is gratefully acknowledged. I would also like to thank those VIMS personnel who provided help and assisted me during the course of this study. Special thanks go to my parents, for their considerable moral support and understanding throughout the course of my graduate studies. Last, but not least my sincerest thanks are due to my buddy Patrick Richardson who provided daily allowances of humor, moral support and sincere friendship. This study was supported in part by an award from Russian and Eurasian Award Program of the National Association of Foreign Students Advisors (NAFS A) and the Virginia Marine Fisheries Commission (grant number RF 98-6, Dr. John E. Olney principal investigator). Dr. William D. DuPaul and Dr. John D. Milliman provided financial assistance during final stage of this study. v LIST OF TABLES Page CHAPTER 1 Table 1. Morphometric measurements of larvae and juveniles of Paradiplospinus antarcticus (in % of SL)...................................................................8 Table 2. Meristic counts for cleared and stained larvae and juveniles of Paradiplospinus antarcticus. Numbers in parentheses denote incomplete ossification...................... 15 Table 3. Comparisons between vertebrae counts of adult specimens of Paradiplospinus antarcticus and P.gracilis...........................................................................................22 CHAPTER 2 Table 1. Morphometric measurements of larvae and metamorphosing specimens of Astronestes sp. Values are reported as % of standard length, n is number of specimens. Other abbreviations are defined in text ................................................. 38 Table 2. Meristic data for cleared and stained larvae and metamorphosing specimens of Astronesthes sp............................................................................................................41 Table 3. Comparison of photophore counts of high-count species of Astronesthes from the Southern Subtropical Convergence (data from Gibbs and McKinney, 1988 and this study) ............................................................................................................................ 42 Table 4. Comparison of meristic counts of high-count Astronesthes species from the Southern Subtropical Convergence (data from Gibbs and McKinney 1988, and this study) ............................................ 52 CHAPTER 3 Table 1. Stations numbers in 34th cruise of R/V “Dmitrii Mendeleev” and samples collected with Isaaks-Kidd midwater trawl, used in present study ..........................67 Table 2. Ranked abundance of species in collections of the 34th cruise of R/V “Dmitrii Mendeleev” (mean 1 - number of individuals per sample; mean 2 - number of individuals per number of samples in which species occurred; max - maximum number of individuals per sample; total - total number of species in the collection). Species code number correspond to those used in ordination and cluster analysis....................................... 78 Table 3. Calculations of diversity indices and evenness of 38 ichthyoplankton samples taken on the 34th cruise of R/V “Dmitrii Medeleev” with samples groups outlined by cluster analysis ................................................................................ 81 Table 4. Two-way sample by species table resulting from TWINSPAN classification. Values denote categories of abundance: 1: 0-0.03, 2: 0.03-0.06, 3: 0.06-1.0, 4: 1.0-1.5, 5: 1.5-5.0 specimens/1000m3....................................................................... 83 Table 5. Results of Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DC A) ...................................... 104 Table 6. Correlation matrix relating DCA axes to environmental variables (= interset correlations of environmental variables with axes) and fraction of variance in environmental data that is extracted by each axis, a) DCA with all samples; b) DCA with samples 1,2,3 and 38 excluded ...............................................................105 Table 7. Results of Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) without samples 1,2,3 and 38 ......................................................................................................................... 109 Table 8. Results of Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) ........................................118 Table 9. The results of Monte-Carlo permutation test (performed with 99 unrestricted permutations) on significance of the fist four axes of CCA ................................... 120 Table 10. Inter-set correlations of environmental variables with canonical axes, variance explained during forward selection of environmental variables and fraction of variance in environmental data that is extracted by each axis of CCA ................. 121 Table 11. Weighted multiple regression of environmental