Recruitment of postlarval prawns,Penaeus Orientalis,to a tidal estuary of Jiaozhou Bay,China

PostlarvalPenaeus orientalis kishinouye were simultaneously sampled at three fixed stations near the mouth of the Dagu River estuary in northwestern Jiaozhou Bay, China, at hourly intervals over a 49-h period in mid-June, 1984. The purpose of this sampling was to investigate the prawn’s recruitment into estuaries from coastal areas. The abundance of the postlarvae varied considerably between stations and time, but they tended to concentrate at the surface. Maximum entropy spectral analysis was first applied in the study of prawn recruitment and it revealed that variations in abundance involved a pronounced 12.4 hr cycle. It was concluded that natural tidal cycles had a strong influence on the changes of postlarval abundance, in contrast with the minor effects of diet and other environmental cycles. A tidally varying cross-river gradient of postlarval density was found. During flood tides the postlarvae were more abundant in the axis of the channel than over the banks. The opposite held true during ebb tides. Mechanisms of the postlarval recruitment are discussed in terms of alternating movements of the postlarvae between the banks and the channels in response to tidal cycles. Contribution No. 1485 from the Institute of Oceanology, Academia Sinica