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First identification of a possible nursery area for diadromous Coilia nasus in the Poyang Lake nearly 1000 km away from the Yangtze River Estuary

Jian Yang1*, Tao Jiang1, Mingjie Lu2, Hongbo Liu1 and Tingting Chen3
  • 1 Freshwater Fisheries Research Center, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, China
  • 2 College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, China
  • 3 Wuxi Fisheries College, Nanjing Agricultural University, China

Estuarine tapertail anchovy Coilia nasus is a small-sized anadromous species in the Yangtze River, China. It is probably the most expensive fish in the world with price as high as $1000/kg and even $9600 for a single extremely large individual with a total length of 45.3 cm and body weight of 0.325 kg in the Jiangsu section of the river in 2012. However, when and where C. nasus spawn along the Yangtze River has still remained a mystery so far. In our field surveys of 2014 and 2015, some highly mature female and male C. nasus with stage V or VI gonads were firstly collected in the water region around Xingzi County in the Poyang Lake, which is nearly 1000 km away from the mouth of the Yangtze River. Although previous studies believed that all C. nasus in the Poyang Lake were freshwater residents, the otolith microchemistry signatures of the present study determined with EPMA and LA-ICPMS further clearly demonstrated that these fish were anadromous individuals. The findings indicated that the C. nasus migrated over nearly 1000 km upstream, with an extremely strong migration ability, passing through the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from the adjacent Yellow sea (even from the areas nearly straight line for as far as ca. 300 km off the Chinese coast line) or East China Sea (Figure 1). The aforementioned evidence strongly suggests that the water region around Xingzi County in the Poyang Lake is a possible spawning/nursery area for anadromous C. nasus. It will be critical to ensure the protection of this region of the Poyang Lake being free from the environmental destruction of anthropogenic activities, especially hydraulic structure (especially dam) construction and sand mining.

Figure 1
Image

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31372533), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20131089).

References

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Keywords: Coilia nasus, Diadromous fish, Nursery area, Spawning area, Yangtze River, Poyang Lake

Conference: XV European Congress of Ichthyology, Porto, Portugal, 7 Sep - 11 Sep, 2015.

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Topic: Otoliths as a tool to study fish life cycles

Citation: Yang J, Jiang T, Lu M, Liu H and Chen T (2015). First identification of a possible nursery area for diadromous Coilia nasus in the Poyang Lake nearly 1000 km away from the Yangtze River Estuary. Front. Mar. Sci. Conference Abstract: XV European Congress of Ichthyology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2015.03.00040

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Received: 05 Nov 2015; Published Online: 05 Nov 2015.

* Correspondence: Prof. Jian Yang, Freshwater Fisheries Research Center, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Wuxi, China, jiany@ffrc.cn