Stoner et al.: Behavior of Pseudopleuronectes amencanus during spawning, feeding, and locomotion 



1015 



to sacrifice winter growth to maintain a high level of 

 reproductive behavior. 



Spawning frequency was high in both males and 

 females. Individual females were capable of spawn- 

 ing as many as 40 times over a period of at least one 

 week, and males spawned throughout the season (at 

 a rate at least three times the female rate) and per- 

 haps several times per day. Clearly, individual 

 records of spawning behavior would be useful in un- 

 derstanding the reproductive role of one-year-old 

 males and in determining the duration of spawning 

 in individual females. Given the frequency of spawn- 

 ing in both male and female winter flounder and the 

 fact that several males may release sperm in re- 

 sponse to egg-laying by one female, we conclude that 

 the genetic diversity of offspring produced by a fe- 

 male in one year is probably very high. 



Although our data provide new insights into the 

 natural history and reproductive behavior of winter 

 flounder, several questions important to sound man- 

 agement of spawning stocks remain to be answered. 

 For example, we do not know if reproductive popula- 

 tions are scattered in estuarine and coastal waters 

 or are concentrated in spawning aggregations on 

 specific spawning grounds. We saw a concentration 

 of ripe fish in the middle reach of the Navesink River 

 estuary, but ripe fish were also present in a variety 

 of habitats in adjacent Raritan Bay during the win- 

 ters of 1997 and 1998 (Stoner and coauthors, per- 

 sonal obs.), and it is possible that winter flounder 

 spawn in more than one location over the spawning 

 season. It is also important to learn whether or not 

 spawning behavior and reproductive output from a 

 spawning ground are density-dependent. 



Acknowledgments 



We wish to thank D. McMillan and the staff of the 

 Coastal Ecology Branch for help in collecting adult 

 winter flounder for the experiments, J. Vitaliano for 

 assistance with video systems, and T. Kalmar for help 

 in analyzing video tapes. We are also grateful to the 

 maintenance staff at the Howard Laboratory, who 

 provided dependable seawater and lighting systems 

 for the long duration of our aquarium study. B. OUa, 

 A. Studholme, and anonymous reviewers provided 

 helpful criticism of the manuscript. 



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