Nursery area contribution of the coast wide Atlantic menhaden population

In widely ranging marine fishes, recruitment is originates from multiple sources.  However, estimating the proportion of recruits from these sources is difficult.  Historically the two most common approaches to address this problem were the application of tags and genetics based approaches.  Both of these approaches have limitations such as high tag associated mortality for small individuals or low differentiation among nurseries.  Natural tagging methods such as otolith chemistry have proven to be powerful tracers of fish origin in numerous systems.

Atlantic menhaden are a widely ranging clupeid that fills an important ecological niche and support a valuable commercial fishery in the Mid-Atlantic Bight.  Chesapeake Bay is thought to contribute approximately 70% of the total recruits to the coast wide menhaden population with fewer individuals originating from the South Atlantic or Mid-Atlantic Bight estuaries.  Despite the ecological and economic importance of menhaden, these figures have never been validated. 

We used otolith chemistry to address coast wide recruitment in Atlantic menhaden. We applied discriminant rules from our previous research to unknown adults sampled from the fall spawning aggregations that develop off the Virginia and North Carolina coasts to estimate the nursery area contributions for the first time.