NOTE Rooper and Haldorson: Consumption of Clupea pallasi eggs by Hexagrammidae in Prince William Sound 659 



stocks into a relatively small area during spawning and 

 the resulting spatial concentration of eggs in the spawning 

 beds could lead to high egg losses owing to predation even 

 in years of low herring biomass. This in turn could drive 

 the abundance of herring eggs even lower, as predators 

 continued to concentrate on an ever-dwindling resource. 



In summary, our study estimated that two gi-eenling 

 species consumed between 2.3'^'f and 3.T'/t of the total her- 

 ring eggs deposited on Montague Island in Prince Wil- 

 liam Sound in 1995. Greenling represent only a portion 

 of the fish species in Prince William Sound; therefore pre- 

 dation by other fish species would probably increase the 

 consumption estimates. Although consumption of herring 

 spawn by fish species has not been extensively studied 

 in the Pacific, the results of our study indicate the impor- 

 tance of predation by fish species on the mortality of her- 

 ring eggs in spawning beds. 



Acknowledgments 



We thank John Wilcock and Karen Hyer, Alaska Depart- 

 ment of Fish and Game, for providing the egg abundance 

 data, as well as Dr. Terrance Quinn II and Jennifer Boldt, 

 University of Alaska Fairbanks, for their technical support. 

 Funds for this study were provided by the Exxon Valdez 

 Trustee Council through the Alaska Department of Fish 

 and Game, Herring Natal Habitats Project no. 95166. 



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