PREY WIDTH (mm) 



Figure 2.— The size of prey selected by larval sablefish, plotted for three size classes of larvae: 8.2-12.5 mm 

 SL (n = 43), 12.6-20.5 mm SL (n = 25), and 20.6-28.5 mm SL (n = 16). 



Table 2. — Frequency of occurrence of copepod nauplii found in the guts of larval sable- 

 fish, by size class and station. 



1 This includes 24 larvae <12.5 mm SL with empty guts. 



readily available at station 25, with the high in- 

 cidence of starvation at this station suggesting a 

 cause-and-effect relationship between these two 

 factors. 



Discussion 



There is no definitive way of discerning whether 

 the sablefish larvae that we categorized as starv- 

 ing had starved to the "point of no return". To 

 ascertain whether sea-caught larvae have starved 

 beyond recovery requires rearing larvae from eggs 

 in the laboratory under different feeding regimes, 

 and using these as standards of comparison for sea- 

 caught specimens. Unfortunately, this has been done 



in only a few cases. For example, O'Connell (1976) 

 established histological criteria for starvation under 

 laboratory conditions for the northern anchovy. 

 These criteria were then employed to identify starv- 

 ing larvae collected in the Southern California Bight 

 (O'Connell 1980). The proportion of starving larvae 

 was estimated to be 8%, for larvae <7.5 mm SL, 

 with this representing 40% of the daily rate of mor- 

 tality. In a more recent and comprehensive study, 

 Theilacker (1986) utilized both histological and mor- 

 phological criteria (Theilacker 1978, 1981) to ex- 

 amine starvation of sea-caught first-feeding jack 

 mackerel in the Southern California Bight. She 

 determined that starvation varied with habitat. In 

 the open ocean, the number of larvae <3.5 mm dying 



487 



