Morse and Able: Distribution and life history of Scophthalmus aquosus 



691 



at least some juveniles settled in areas of larval con- 

 centration, although this pattern was not as strong 

 for the Middle Atlantic Bight as it was for Georges 

 Bank. Larval abundance on Georges Bank was high 

 and recently settled juveniles were clearly abundant 

 there in the fall but less so in the spring (Fig. 10). 

 Slightly larger individuals were also evident off 

 Massachusetts in the fall (Fig. 10), but they were 

 not caught in the deeper waters of the continental 

 shelf further south (subareas 1-5, Fig. 10). Size at 

 settlement appears to differ between Georges Bank 

 and the Middle Atlantic Bight. Larvae >10 mm were 

 collected only rarely in the Middle Atlantic Bight but 

 were relatively abundant on Georges Bank. This 

 pattern of catches could arise from 1 ) the large lar- 

 vae avoiding capture by transforming and settling 

 earlier in the south, 2) the differences in mortality 

 between regions, or 3) the unavailability of larger 

 larvae to the sampling gear because they entered the 

 unsampled surf-zone or the numerous estuaries in 

 the southern part of the study area. This last possi- 

 bility is clearly not an option for Georges Bank lar- 

 vae that do not make extensive migrations (50-75 

 km) to the nearshore areas of Massachusetts. We 

 have shown that mortality estimates are higher 

 in the Middle Atlantic Bight than on Georges Bank. 

 Settlement in estuaries in the Middle Atlantic Bight 

 is also possible because larger planktonic larvae (K. 

 W. Able, D. A. Witting, and M. P. Fahay, unpubl. data) 

 and small juveniles were collected from these areas 

 in New Jersey (this study, Figs. 8 and 12; Allen et 

 al., 1978), Delaware (Pacheco and Grant, 1973), and 

 Long Island (Warfel and Merriman, 1944). Yet to be 

 resolved are the reasons for the differences in the 

 size of larvae and the apparent mortalities in the dif- 

 ferent geographic regions, as well as for the subsequent 

 effect of size on settlement and the location of nursery 

 areas throughout the range of windowpane. 



Acknowledgments 



We wish to thank the following people for access to 

 datasets: T Azarovitz for the NMFS bottom trawl 

 survey data, A. Howe for the Massachusetts trawl 

 survey data, D. Byrne for the New Jersey trawl data, 

 and D. Witting for the Great Bay ichthyoplankton 

 data. 



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