FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 83, NO. 3 



from low volume in spring to peak volume in winter 

 (Fig. 2). In males, the volume of testes increased 

 from spring to a peak in summer, declined slightly in 

 fall, and fell greatly in winter (Fig. 2). 



Summary and Comparison of 

 Adult Fat Cycles 



In all species studied, visceral fat volume was high, 

 if not at a peak, during fall. In males, fat content was 

 usually high during summer as well. In male S. en- 

 toTnelas, S. paucispinis, and S. Jlavidus, summer and 

 fall fat content did not differ significantly, and in 

 male S. goodei the fat content in summer was actual- 

 ly greater than in fall. Summertime fat content was 

 relatively high in female S. entomelas, S. goodei, and 

 S. flavidus, but in females of all species the fat con- 

 tent increased to a peak in fall. Winter and spring 

 were usually the seasons of low fat volume in both 

 sexes. Little pattern existed in S. pinniger, except 

 that fat volume appeared to reach a peak in fall. 



Both the relative amplitude of fat cycles and peak 

 fat volume differed among the species and sexes. In 



Table 4.— Relative amplitude of fat cycles in five spe- 

 cies of Sebastes. The ratio of estimated peak season : 

 low season fat volume is presented for eacti species 

 and sex, and is used as an index of cycle amplitude. 

 Ratios are the antilogs of the differences between 

 estimated In (fat volume) at the average of In (total 

 length) in peak and low fat seasons (Fig. 1, Table 3). 



Amplitude 



male and female S. entomelas, S. goodei, and S. 

 flavidus, the fat volume of average-sized fish 

 changed by about a factor of three during the year 

 (Table 4). The amplitude of the fat cycle was lower in 

 S. paucispinis and S. pinniger, where there was less 

 than a twofold change in fat content between peak 

 and low seasons (Table 4). Among females, S. en- 

 tomelas and S. Jlavidus generally had higher peak fat 

 volumes than the other species (Table 5). Among the 

 other three species, peak fat content of females 

 seemed to decrease from S. pinniger to S. 

 paucispinis toS. goodei (Table 5). Females of S. ento- 

 melas and S. Jlavidus, then, possessed high-volume, 

 high-amplitude fat cycles, while S. pinniger and S. 

 paucispinis had low-volume, low-amplitude fat 

 cycles, and S. goodei showed low volume and rela- 

 tively high amplitude. The peak fat volume in maleS. 

 entomelas far exceeded that of the remaining 

 species, most of which had relatively similar fat- 

 length relationships during peak seasons (Table 5). 

 Thus among males, only S. entomelas showed a high- 

 volume, high-amplitude fat cycle. Males of S. Jlavidus 

 and S. goodei possessed fat cycles of low volume and 

 moderately high amplitude, and S. paucispinis and 

 S. pinniger had cycles of low volume and low ampli- 

 tude, like the females of these species. 



Fat Cycles in Juveniles 



Fat cycles were examined in juveniles of male and 

 female S. paucispinis, and of female 5. pinniger and 

 iS. Jlavidus, where seasonal sample sizes were large 

 enough to permit analysis (Table 6). In 5. paucispi- 

 nis, juvenile females appeared to reach a peak in fat 

 content during winter, but in juvenile males there 

 were no significant differences among the seasonal 

 regressions (Fig. 3). In S. pinniger, juvenile females 



Table 5.— Comparisons of the peak-season regressions of In (fat volume) on In (total 

 length) for different species of Sebastes. Comparisons were made by analysis of 

 covariance. For significantly differing regressions (P < 0.05), the comparative fat 

 volumes are indicated (based on the positions of the regressions, cf. Fig. 1, Table 1), 

 unless intersecting lines made position difficult to interpret. NS denotes regressions 

 that did not differ significantly. 



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