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



1009 



E 



12 n 



10 



8 - 



25-Jan 14-Feb 



1^1 B 



1.2 



6-Mar 



26-Mar 15-Apr 5-May 



o 



^ 0.8 



o 0.6 - 



d 



z 



0.4 - 

 0.2 



25-Jan 



14-Feb 



6-Mar 



26-Mar 



1 5-Apr 



5-May 



Date 



Figure 8 



(A) Water temperature and (B) abundance of winter flounder in the Navesink River estuary 

 during winter and spring 1997. Temperature values are means and ranges of temperature 

 at the eight sampling stations. Values for flounder abundance are mean catch (±1 standard 

 error) per 100-m distance over the bottom sampled by a 5-m otter trawl. 



Discussion 



Spawning behavior 



Direct observation of spawning behavior has been 

 documented for only a few flatfish, but spawning 

 modes appear to vary substantially among species. 

 Midwater pair-spawning has been observed in pla- 

 ice (P. platessus; Forster, 1953), and in Dover sole 

 iMicrostomus pacificus; BajTies et al., 1994), but win- 

 ter flounder spawned near the bottom and pairwise 

 spawning (22%) was less common than spawnings 

 involving multiple males (78%). Also, winter floun- 



der spawning may be less elaborate or ritualized than 

 in plaice or Dover sole or Caribbean bothids (Konstan- 

 tinou and Shen, 1995 1. Although this could be an arti- 

 fact of confinement, our research aquarium, with a 

 bottom surface area of 46 m- and 3 m depth, was 

 much larger than tanks where pair spawning has 

 been observed in other species and where the den- 

 sity and size offish were lower. 



Our long-term observation of a single spawning 

 population in the aquarium allowed us to record sev- 

 eral different forms of reproductive behavior not re- 

 ported earlier (Breder, 1922). Most notably, we were 

 able to observe and record individual encounters 



