Barbien et al.: Age, growth, and mortality of Micropogonias undulatus 



1 I 



early spawned fish, combined with higher mortal- 

 ity of late-spawned fish as a result of low winter 

 temperatures in estuarine nursery areas (Mass- 

 mann and Pacheco, 1960; Joseph, 1972; Warlen and 

 Burke, 1991) could account for an increase in the 

 proportion of larger fish in certain years and explain 

 the episodic occurrence of large Atlantic croaker in 

 this area. 



Our results for Chesapeake Bay, together with 

 records of large fish south of North Carolina during 

 1977-82, suggest that the hypothesis of a basically 

 different life history and population dynamics pat- 

 tern for Atlantic croaker north and south of Cape 

 Hatteras, North Carolina, should be reevaluated. 

 However, sampling programs over time describing 

 size and age compositions of Atlantic croaker 

 throughout their range are still necessary to fully 

 evaluate this question. 



Acknowledgments 



We would like to thank the Chesapeake Bay com- 

 mercial fishermen and James Owens (VIMS) for 

 helping us obtain samples. Sue Lowerre-Barbieri 

 helped with fish processing and with otolith section- 

 ing and reading. Claude Bain (Virginia Saltwater 

 Fishing Tournament) and Jessie Anglin (Delaware 

 Department of Natural Resources) provided infor- 

 mation on Atlantic croaker recreational citation 

 records. Ronald Hardy, Joe Loesch, Sue Lowerre- 

 Barbieri, Jack Musick, Rogerio Teixeira, and two 

 anonymous reviewers made helpful suggestions to 

 improve the manuscript. Financial support was pro- 

 vided by the College of William and Mary, Virginia 

 Institute of Marine Science, by Old Dominion Uni- 

 versity, Applied Marine Research Laboratory, and by 

 a Wallop/Breaux Program Grant for Sport Fish Res- 

 toration from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 through the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, 

 Project No. F-88-R3. Luiz R. Barbieri was partially 

 supported by a scholarship from CNPq, Ministry of 

 Science and Technology, Brazil (process No. 203581/ 

 86-OC). 



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