Menidia spp., silversides 



Two species of silversides dominate the shore zone along the Connecticut coast, the Atlantic silverside 

 {Menidia menidia) and the inland silverside {Menidia berylUna). Both species are sympatric along the 

 Atlantic coast, with the Atlantic silverside ranging from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Chesapeake Bay 

 and the inland silverside ranging from Cape Cod to South Carolina (Johnson 1975). Both species spawn 

 as yearlings and have a life cycle that ranges from one to two years. Both are omnivorous, feeding on 

 copepods, mysid shrimp, fish eggs and young squid. They are important as forage food for larger fish 

 species (Bigelow and Schroeder 1953). 



Silversides collected in MNPS programs were identified to genus during some portion of the two-unit 

 operational period. When identified to species, Menidia menidia were the most abundant (over 90%). 

 However, to investigate long-term trends the two species were always analyzed together as a single taxon. 

 Silversides, the most abundant taxon among those collected in the seine program, ranked third and fifth 

 among taxa sampled by the trawl and impingement programs, respectively. Silversides were not abundant 

 in plankton samples because their eggs are adhesive (Bigelow and Scliroeder 1953) and larvae and juveniles 

 stay close to shore (Bayliff 1950). 



Pronounced seasonal patterns of abundance were evident in seine, trawl and impingement collections 

 (Fig. 13). The seine catches in the summer and early fall were composed primarily of juveniles (20-50 

 mm), while catches in trawl and impingement collections were composed of larger fish (60-120 mm) 

 collected from deeper waters in the winter. This pattern of catches seems related to the offshore migrations 

 of silversides in the late fall and winter reported in other studies (Bayliff 1950; Bigelow and Schroeder 

 1953; Conovcr 1979). The average monthly catches of silversides taken by trawls in the MNPS area during 

 the last in yr also showed a pattern pointing out to regular winter offshore migrations (Fig. 14), Silversides 

 began to move away from the shore-zone and were found at the nearshore station, JC, in September. 

 They were collected from NR, NB and IN in November and were found at the two offshore stations, BR 

 and TT, December through March. 



Although the total annual seine and trawl catches of silversides (Tables 17 and 14, respectively) 

 suggest a common and decreasing trend, a similar pattern was not evident among annual impingement 

 estimates (Table 13). Further, the variances associated with those data were high as demonstrated by the 



38 



