Lake water level increase during spring affects the breeding success of bream Abramis brama (L.)

In Lake Constance, Eurasian bream Abramis brama (L.) spawn in very shallow littoral areas by the beginning of May. They attach their adhesive eggs to pebble and cobble substratum at <40 cm depth. Increasing water levels before spawning inundate bare substratum to which bream eggs may attach better than to deeper substratum covered by epilithon. Consequently, the water level increase prior to spawning should determine the amount of pristine spawning substratum available to bream and thus influence their breeding success. In order to test this hypothesis, the influence of hydrology and climate on the abundance of age-0 bream was combined with the results from field investigations on the egg survival and abundance of age-0 bream. A strong positive correlation between the mean water level increase during the spawning season of bream (April–May) and the abundance of juvenile bream was found. In contrast, the absolute water level during spawning and during the nursery stage in summer, the cumulative temperature during the egg, larval and juvenile stages and two North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices did not affect the abundance of juvenile bream. The field investigations confirmed that bream eggs attach better to and have higher survival rates on bare substratum than on substratum with epilithon cover. Accordingly, eggs within a spawning habitat of bream were most abundant between 10 and 20 cm depth, where the epilithon cover was lower than at depths exceeding 30 cm. The results of this study confirm an adverse influence of epilithon cover on the attachment and subsequent survival of bream eggs and emphasize the importance of spring inundations for the successful breeding of the bream.

[1]  N. Stenseth,et al.  The North Atlantic Oscillation and ecology : links between historical time-series, and lessons regarding future climate warming , 2007 .

[2]  K. Rothhaupt,et al.  An efficient in situ method for sampling periphyton in lakes and streams , 2005 .

[3]  C. A. Mills,et al.  Environmentally‐induced fluctuations in year‐class strength and their implications for management , 1985 .

[4]  S. Jennings,et al.  Marine Fisheries Ecology , 2001 .

[5]  W. V. Winkle,et al.  Water-Level Fluctuation Effects on Centrarchid Reproductive Success in Reservoirs: A Modeling Analysis , 2008 .

[6]  S. Hülsmann,et al.  The impact of water level fluctuations on the year class strength of roach: Implications for fish stock management , 2008 .

[7]  K. Rothhaupt,et al.  Epilithic communities in a lake littoral zone: the role of water-column transport and habitat development for dispersal and colonization of meiofauna , 2007, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[8]  K. Rothhaupt,et al.  Effects of water depth and hydrodynamics on the growth and distribution of juvenile cyprinids in the littoral zone of a large pre-alpine lake. , 2008 .

[9]  Robert S. Rupp.  Shore-Spawning and Survival of Eggs of the American Smelt , 1965 .

[10]  D. Kucharczyk,et al.  Effect of temperature on embryonic and larval development of bream (Abramis brama L.) , 1997, Aquatic Sciences.

[11]  R. Fulford,et al.  Elucidating patterns of size-dependent predation on larval yellow perch (Perca flavescens) in Lake Michigan: an experimental and modeling approach , 2006 .

[12]  J. Kubečka,et al.  The effect of water level fluctuation on tributary spawning migration of reservoir fish , 2004 .

[13]  C. Lorenzen,et al.  DETERMINATION OF CHLOROPHYLL AND PHEO‐PIGMENTS: SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC EQUATIONS1 , 1967 .

[14]  P. Poncin,et al.  Territorial and non-territorial spawning behaviour in the bream , 1996 .

[15]  James W. Hurrell,et al.  The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climate Significance and Environmental Impact , 2003 .

[16]  D. G. George,et al.  Biotic and abiotic influences on the recruitment of male perch in Windermere, U.K. , 2004 .

[17]  J. Meeker,et al.  Implications for faunal habitat related to altered macrophyte structure in regulated lakes in northern Minnesota , 1992, Wetlands.

[18]  J. Savitz.  Black Bass: Ecology, Conservation, and Management , 2004 .

[19]  I. Cowx,et al.  Is water temperature an adequate predictor of recruitment success in cyprinid fish populations in lowland rivers , 2003 .

[20]  A. Gasith,et al.  Effect of water level fluctuation on shore spawning of Mirogrex terraesanctae (Steinitz), (Cyprinidae) in Lake Kinneret, Israel , 1992 .

[21]  K. Schmieder,et al.  Assessment of human pressures and their hydromorphological impacts on lakeshores in Europe , 2004 .

[22]  D. Kucharczyk,et al.  Effect of temperature on embryonic and larval development of bream ( , 1997 .

[23]  G. E. Newsome,et al.  Winds and the demic structure of a population of yellow perch (Perca flavescens) , 1993 .

[24]  W. C. Leggett,et al.  Recruitment in marine fishes: Is it regulated by starvation and predation in the egg and larval stages? , 1994 .

[25]  P. Fischer,et al.  Spatial distribution of littoral fish species in a large European lake, Lake Constance, Germany , 1997 .

[26]  K. Rose,et al.  Simulating smallmouth bass reproductive success in reservoirs , 1998, Environmental Biology of Fishes.

[27]  T. Mehner,et al.  Composition of fish communities in German lakes as related to lake morphology, trophic state, shore structure and human‐use intensity , 2005 .

[28]  P. Nõges,et al.  Climate driven changes in the spawning of roach (Rutilus rutilus (L.)) and bream (Abramis brama (L.)) in the Estonian part of the Narva River basin , 2005 .

[29]  J. M. Dettmers,et al.  Foraging selectivity by larval yellow perch (Perca flavescens): implications for understanding recruitment in small and large lakes , 2006 .

[30]  D. Willis,et al.  Yellow Perch Spawning Habitats in Pickerel Lake, South Dakota , 1996 .

[31]  A. Herzig,et al.  The influence of temperature on the embryonic development of three cyprinid fishes, Abramis brama, Chalcalburnus chalcoides mento and Vimba vimba , 1986 .