Valle et aL: Habitat use by Paialichthys catifornicus and Paralabrax nebulifer 



651 



o 



o 



16 7 



Figure 2 



Mean number per 100 m- of newly settled (<20 mm SLi and larger California halibut 

 iParalichthys californicus) captured by month in Alamitos Bay from May 1992 through No- 

 vember 1995 (n=435 towsl. Error bars represent + one standard error for the total number of 

 halibut per 100 m- captured by month. 



halibut abundance decreased as distance from the 

 bay mouth increased. Within unvegetated areas, 

 Cahfomia hahbut were approximately 6 and 14 times 

 more abundant at Bay Entrance than at Belmont 

 Shore and Marine Stadium, respectively. 



California halibut length ranged from 7 to 253 mm 

 SL, but few were larger than 140 mm SL; no adults 

 were captured. Lengths were similar among habi- 

 tats and sites except that many more newly settled 

 individuals were captured in unvegetated areas than 

 in eelgrass beds, particularly at Bay Entrance (Fig. 

 4). The length-frequency distribution of California 

 halibut in unvegetated habitat at Bay Entrance was 

 significantly different from nearby eelgrass (P=0.007 ) 

 and from Belmont Shore unvegetated area (P=0.001 ). 

 No other length-frequency comparisons were signifi- 

 cantly different (P>0.05). 



Barred sand bass 



We collected 225 barred sand bass from 12.47f of the 

 tows ( Table 2 ). The number of barred sand bass cap- 

 tured per tow ranged from to 42 with a mean of 0.5 

 ± 0.14 SE. Newly recruited barred sand bass and 

 most larger juveniles were captured from Septem- 

 ber through November (Fig. 5). Barred sand bass 

 were captured almost exclusively (98.2% ) in eelgrass 



Table 3 



Results of Kruskal-Wallis test iKW) and Dunn multiple 

 comparisons (D) of California halibut iParalichthys 

 californicus t abundance between habitats and among sites. 

 df=degrees of freedom, H=Kruskal-Wallis statistic. BE=Bay 

 Entrance, BS=Belmont Shore, MS=Marine Stadium, 

 U=unvegetated habitat, and E=eelgrass iZostera marina) 

 habitat. *=significant at P<0.0.5. 



Comparison 



Test 



df 



Statistic P-value 



Habitat (U vs. E) 



BE 



BS 



MS 

 Site(U) 



BE vs. BS 



BE vs. MS 



BS vs. MS 

 Site (El 



BE vs. BS 



BE vs. MS 



BS vs. MS 



beds and none were captured at Marine Stadium (Fig. 

 3B), leading to a significant interaction term in the 

 two-way ANOVA (P=0.003). Because barred sand 



