452 
Fishery Bulletin 99(3) 
Standard length (mm) 
Figure 7 
Density-weighted mean salinity at capture for different sizes and stages 
of ladyfish, EIops saurus, in Tampa Bay (1989-95) and Indian River 
Lagoon (1990-95). Early- and mid-metamorphic larvae are indicated 
as “Lepto.” Error bars represent 2 standard errors. The solid horizon- 
tal line represents the median salinity value, and the dotted horizontal 
lines represent the 10 th and 90 th salinity percentiles, based on all sam- 
ples (with or without ladyfish) from each system. 
Ladyfish in both Florida estuaries followed a similar se- 
quence of size-specific movements with respect to salin- 
ity. Soon after metamorphosis and for much of their first 
year, ladyfish occupied waters that were lower than the 
median salinity of each estuary. Following their first win- 
ter, ladyfish occupied higher than median salinities. The 
available salinity range was wider in Tampa Bay and la- 
dyfish were found in a wider range of salinity in Tampa 
Bay than ladyfish in the Indian River Lagoon. Some de- 
tails of these movements deserve further investigation. 
For example, as juveniles grew to about 150 mm SL during 
summer they were found in progressively lower salinities. 
However, they may have passively remained in shallow- 
water habitats where salinity was decreasing because of 
summer rains, instead of actively selecting lower salinity 
waters. We also did not examine other factors that may co- 
vary with salinity; therefore we cannot rank the effect of 
salinity in relation to other variables. In one such simul- 
taneous analysis, Friedland et al. (1996) showed that juve- 
nile menhaden ( Brevoortia tyrannus ) select waters of high 
chlorophyll-a levels more consistently than a specific sa- 
linity value. 
Temperature presumably affects ladyfish distributions 
as well. During colder than average winters, ladyfish have 
experienced hypothermal mortality in both Tampa Bay 
(Springer and Woodburn, 1960) and the Indian River La- 
goon (Snelson and Bradley, 1978). We observed ladyfish 
moving into deeper water, to river mouths, to the lower 
