Spawning by the European eel across 2000 km of the Sargasso Sea

It has been known for about a century that European eels have a unique life history that includes offshore spawning in the Sargasso Sea about 5000– 7000 km away from their juvenile and adult habitats in Europe and northern Africa. Recently hatched eel larvae were historically collected during Danish...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biology Letters
Main Authors: Miller, Michael J., Westerberg, Hakan, Sparholt, Henrik, Wysujack, Klaus, Sorensen, Sune R., Marohn, Lasse, Jacobsen, Magnus W., Freese, Marko, Ayala, Daniel J., Pohlmann, Jan-Dag, Svendsen, Jon C., Watanabe, Shun, Andersen, Line, Moller, Peter R., Tsukamoto, Katsumi, Munk, Peter, Hanel, Reinhold
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Text
ddc:570
Anguilla anguilla > spawning area > migration > leptocephali > ocean fronts > Sargasso Sea
Anguilla anguilla
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0835
https://www.openagrar.de/receive/openagrar_mods_00048911
https://www.openagrar.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/openagrar_derivate_00021442/dn060960.pdf
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Summary:It has been known for about a century that European eels have a unique life history that includes offshore spawning in the Sargasso Sea about 5000– 7000 km away from their juvenile and adult habitats in Europe and northern Africa. Recently hatched eel larvae were historically collected during Danish, German and American surveys in specific areas in the southern Sargasso Sea. During a 31 day period of March and April 2014, Danish and German research ships sampled for European eel larvae along 15 alternating transects of stations across the Sargasso Sea. The collection of recently hatched eel larvae (~,12 mm) from 708 W and eastward to 508 W showed that the European eel had been spawning across a 2000 km wide region of the North Atlantic Ocean. Historical collections made from 1921 to 2007 showed that small larvae had also previously been collected in this wide longitudinal zone, showing that the spatial extent of spawning has not diminished in recent decades, irrespective of the dramatic decline in recruitment. The use of such a wide spawning area may be related to variations in the onset of the silver eel spawning migration, individual differences in their long-term swimming ability, or aspects of larval drift.

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