Tolan and Fisher: Biological response of Lutjanus griseus to climate patterns in Texas bays and estuaries 
43 
the life history, behavior, and population dynamics of 
the affected animals (McEachron et al., 1994). During 
our study period, three severe polar cold fronts caused 
coast-wide fish-kill events during December 1983, Feb- 
ruary 1989, and December 1989. In the absence of cold 
winters, this species has established semipermanent 
populations in nearly every estuary along the Texas 
coast, and these populations are likely to continue to 
flourish until the next polar front either diminishes 
these estuarine populations, or a series of successive 
cold winters creates a “thermal closure” of the nursery 
habitats ( sensu Hare and Able, 2007). Gray snapper 
are far less abundant in the northernmost estuary (Sa- 
bine-Neches), presumably because the winter minimum 
temperatures regularly fall below 12°C. December 2004 
was remarkable in that a strong cold front brought 
measurable snowfall to most of coastal south Texas for 
the first time in over 100 years and resulted in a local- 
ized cold kill of approximately 12,000 gray snapper on 
the gulf beach side of Boca Chica, near the lower end 
of the Laguna Madre estuary. Declines in gray snap- 
per abundance after the snowfall event of 2004 can be 
seen in three of the four mid-coast estuaries shown in 
Figure 4C. 
Although only a single species was examined in our 
study, there may well be many species along the Texas 
coast for which recruitment and population dynam- 
ics are linked to climatic forcing (e.g., sand drum, 
[ Umbrina coroides ]; common snook \Centropomus un- 
decimalis]', tarpon [ Megalops atlanticus ], and African 
pompano [ Alectis ciliaris ], see Moore, 1975). In the 
past few years alone, both snook and tarpon have be- 
come exceedingly more common along the rock jetty 
passes at both Mansfield Pass (gulf connection at the 
far upper end of Lower Laguna Madre) and Aransas 
Pass (gulf pass connection for both the Nueces and 
Mission-Aransas estuaries). Connections between fish 
population dynamics and climate patterns need to be 
better quantified and incorporated into stock assess- 
ment models to ensure successful long-term manage- 
ment of fishery stocks. 
Acknowledgments 
We thank all the field staff and the technicians at 
the Coastal Fisheries Division of the Texas Parks and 
Wildlife Department for their diligent collection of 
the biotic and abiotic parameters used for this study. 
We especially thank J. W. Hurrell, Climate Analysis 
Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 
Boulder, Colorado, for providing the North Atlantic 
Oscillation-Arctic Oscillation index values used for this 
study. A. Nunez, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 
Coastal Fisheries Division, Corpus Christi, Texas, pro- 
vided the December 2004 gray snapper fish-kill data. 
Although this project was never explicitly funded by 
research grants, the continued support of Sportfish 
Restoration Funds enabled the time necessary for data 
synthesis and interpretation. 
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