Mann et a\ ; Reproduction and recruitment oi Mugil curema 



819 



Hatching date 



ooooooooooooooooooo 



Date 



Figure 10 



(Upper panel) Frequency distribution of hatching dates for juvenile white mullet recruits caught in 1992 

 and 1993 in La Restinga lagoon. Points represent raw data. Continuous black line represents the trend 

 line generated after application of a smoothing spline (lambda=10). (Lower panel) Upwelling index (UI) 

 for northeastern Venezuela calculated from August 1991 to March 1993. See text for description of cal- 

 culation. Points represent raw data. Continuous black line represents the trend line generated following 

 application of a smoothing spline (lambda=10). 



moderate levels of wind stress and this differs from the 

 strong upwellings observed in such places as Peru and Sen- 

 egal. The relation between the timing of successful spawn- 

 ing and the intensity of coastal recruitment in white mullet 

 is likely due to variations in the duration of the transport 

 of larvae and juveniles to the shore as a result of varying 

 current conditions as well as variations in food availability 

 for first-feeding larvae. 



Acknowledgments 



This work is part of a Ph.D. thesis submitted to Laval Uni- 

 versity by the senior author who was financially supported 

 by the Fundayacucho Program of Scholarships. We thank 

 the technical and analytical assistance of the zooplankton 

 staff of lOV-UDO (Institute Oceanografico de Venezuela, 

 Universidad de Oriente), Domingo Figueroa and Rafael 

 Briceno, and Caroline Berger for her work in the field 

 survey, figure preparation and the processing of otoliths 

 with Julie Paquet. Martin LLano, of the Metereological 

 Station of Fundacion La Salle, kindly supplied the enviro- 

 mental data. We thank Luis Trocolis, Jose Luis Fuentes, and 

 Alfredo Gomez from de Edimar-UDO, Nueva Esparta, for 

 laboratory support, Jose Bechara, Casimiro Quinones, and 



Jean Paul Boulianne for advice and statistical support and 

 Idelfonso Liheros and Jesus Marcano for support and com- 

 plementary information. This work was funded by grants 

 from NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research 

 Council of Canada) and FCAR (Fonds pour la Formation 

 des Chercheurs et L'Aide a la Recherche, Quebec, Canada) 

 to Julian J. Dodson and GIROQ (Groupe Interuniversitaire 

 de Recherches en Oceanographie du Quebec) and by the 

 Consejo de Investigacion-Universidad de Oriente, proyecto 

 LISA-92 (CI-5-019-00554/92). 



Literature cited 



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 1980. Composicidn per especies y distribucion de las post- 

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 1982. The fecundity of mullet (Pisces, Mugilidae) from 

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 Anderson, W. W. 



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