530 



Fishery Bulletin 90(3). 1992 



and Virginia (25-35 m in depth) fish-trap catches of 

 tautog are lowest in summer (Eklund and Targett 

 1991), perhaps due to inshore migrations of winter 

 residents. Tagging studies conducted by Cooper (1966) 

 suggest relatively discrete populations of tautog, with 

 adults returning to the same spawning location follow- 

 ing their winter residence offshore. 



These prior studies of habitat requirements, behav- 

 ior, and growth have focused primarily on fishes older 

 than 1 year. In this paper we concentrate on life-history 

 aspects for young-of-the-year individuals, particularly 

 larvae and juveniles that have just recently metamor- 

 phosed and settled from the plankton. We present in- 

 formation on spatial and temporal distribution of eggs 

 and larvae, larval stage duration, juvenUe habitat, daily 

 growth, and otolith-size/fish-size relationships. 



Materials and methods 



Reproductive seasonality and 

 larval distribution 



Information on timing of spawning and spatial distribu- 

 tion of tautog larvae was obtained from three sources 

 (Table 1). Egg abundances were assessed in plankton 

 collections during December 1972-December 1975 in 

 the Mullica River-Great Bay estuary and adjacent 

 ocean off Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey (Fig. 1). Sam- 

 pling was conducted with 0.5m and 1.0m diameter 

 plankton nets and 20 cm and 36 cm diameter bongo 

 samplers with 0.5 mm mesh. Surface, midwater, and 

 bottom tows were made with the plankton nets; the 

 bongos were fished obliquely. Data used in this study 

 were reanalyzed from a report by Milstein and Thomas 

 (1977). 



Larval occurrences over the continental shelf were 

 determined from collections made on Marine Resources 

 Monitoring, Assessment and Prediction (MARMAP) 

 surveys (Sherman 1988) by the National Marine Fish- 



Figure 1 



Map of Mullica River-Great Bay estuary system in New 

 Jersey, and location of plankton sampling site in Little Sheeps- 

 head Creek. 



eries Service (NMFS). Surveys were conducted from 

 Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Sable, Nova 

 Scotia. Sampling stations are shown in Figure 2; sam- 

 pling methods are described in Sibunka and Silverman 

 (1989). 



Our third source of plankton data was obtained from 

 a sampling program at the Rutgers University Marine 

 Field Station. Aim diameter, 1mm mesh net was 

 fished at the surface and just above the bottom on night 

 flood tides in Little Sheepshead Creek, adjacent to 

 Great Bay (Fig. 1). 



Juvenile length-frequency comparisons 



Monthly patterns in length-frequency distributions 

 were assessed from collections across several sites in 

 the Little Egg Harbor and Great Bay estuaries (Fig. 

 1) using throw-trap and otter trawl sampling (Table 1). 

 A throw trap is a 1 m- open box that is thrown onto 



