Morse and Able: Distribution and life history of Scophthalmus aquosus 



687 



FALL 



SPRING 



Length (cm) 

 Figure 10 



Length-frequency distribution of windowpane, Scophthalmus aquosus, from 

 subareas indicated in Figure 1 during NMFS fall and spring groundfish sur- 

 veys. See Table 1 for additional details. 



evident. However, these results do not clearly indicate 

 an inshore movement of juvenile fish during fall on the 

 continental shelf, although eggs, larvae, and juveniles 

 can be found in some estuaries. 



Juvenile length frequencies and growth 



Understanding patterns of age composition and 

 growth in our study area is confounded by location 

 and timing of spawning. For our purposes we will 

 follow the patterns for Georges Bank (subarea 7) and 

 the Middle Atlantic Bight off New Jersey (subarea 

 4), because they appear quite different. In subarea 



7, where there is a specific peak in spawning, larvae 

 first appear in relatively large numbers in June at 

 sizes ranging from 2 to 6 mm (Table 2). They reach 

 peak abundance in August when they range from 2 

 to 20 mm (Table 2; Fig. 4). By the fall they are well 

 represented in bottom trawl collections at sizes of 

 2—14 cm TL (Fig. 10). By spring they are probably 

 represented by the two smaller modes over the range 

 from 3 to 16 cm TL (Fig. 10). The similar size ranges 

 from fall to spring suggest that little or no growth 

 occurs over the winter. By the following fall, this 

 group has probably attained sizes of >17 cm TL and 

 cannot be separated from older fish by length alone 



