McDonough and Wenner: Growth, recruitment, and abundance of juvenile Mugil cephalus 



347 



600 



400 



200 



-J 



1 200 



1000 



800 



600 



400 



200 



Oligohaline (< 5 ppt) 

 Mesohaline (5.1 to 18.0 ppt) 

 Polyhalinc(l8.l to 30.0 ppt) 



ai 



^ 1 1 1 r- 



Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 



B 



Oligohaline (< 5 ppt) 

 Mesohaline (5.1 to 18.0 ppt) 

 ^^ Polyhaline(18.l to 30.0 ppt) 

 r~"~l Euhaline (> 30. 1 ppt) 





T" n^ n^ * — < 



Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 



Month 



Figure 3 



Total catch frequency for juvenile striped mullet stratified by salinity regime from plank- 

 ton net tows (A) (« = 1252) and rotenone surveys (B) (/!=4246). 



Results 



Abundance and recruitment 



Plankton tows from 1986 and 1987 showed that the high- 

 est abundance of striped mullet in the Charleston Harbor 

 Estuary occurred in February and March (Fig. 3A). The 

 majority of these young-of-the-year were captured in meso- 



haline (65% of the total) and polyhaline salinities (28% of 

 the total). 



The historical rotenone surveys indicated that numerical 

 abundance of juvenile striped mullet was highest in Febru- 

 ary and March (Fig. 3B). The earliest captures of young- 

 of-the-year striped mullet in the rotenone survey were 19 

 specimens in November of 1986 and a single specimen in 

 December of 1986. Abundances for the different salinity 



