FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 84, NO. 1 



Figure 1— Testing array (lOx). C: Prionotus carolinus ovum (1.00 mm); E: Prionotus evolans ovum (1.00 

 mm); A A : Anti-PeSP antiserum (adsorbed: 0.20 mL antiserum: 0.11 mg PcSP protein); A N : Anti-PeSP antiserum 

 (unadsorbed). Specific adsorption of cross-reactive antibodies has occurred with PcSP rendering anti-PeSP antiserum 

 (A A ) incompetent to react with antigens of Prionotus carolinus ova (C), indicated by the lack of precipitin bands 

 about the central well adjacent to (C) egg wells. Corner wells contain multicompetent, unadsorbed anti-PeSP antisera. 



PeSP with known P. carolinus eggs was considered 

 sufficiently definitive for its use in differentiating 

 P. carolinus from P. evolans ova. 



The immunochemical classifications derived from 

 this analysis indicated that an average 22.3% mis- 

 classification error had been made when eggs were 

 differentiated solely on the basis of oil globule 

 distributions. An approximately equal number of 

 both northern and striped searobin eggs had been 

 mistakenly identified, based upon oil globule 

 distribution patterns. The final classification based 

 upon immunochemical data was 406 ova of P. 

 carolinus and 32G ova of P. evolans. 



It was confirmed that egg diameters could not 

 serve as a reliable characteristic for species classi- 

 fications by retrospectively analyzing diameters of 

 immunochemically classified eggs according to the 

 period of field collection. The data presented in Table 

 2 illustrate that no statistical difference exists in the 

 diameter ranges of P. carolinus and P. evolans eggs 

 for the collection period of this study. However, the 

 trend of declining egg diameters over the spawning 

 season previously documented by other workers is 



Table 2.— Immunochemical classification of 

 Prionotus spp. eggs collected in plankton 

 samples. 



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