Spatiotemporal variability of demersal fish larvae assemblages in the southern region of the California Current

ABSTRACT

An analysis was conducted of the community structure variability of demersal fish larvae and its relationship with environmental forcing on the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula (25–31°N). The information comes from two data sets of oceanographic cruises in 1997–2000 and 2006–2010. From a total of 190 identified taxa, a high number of species (71) was shared throughout the peninsula. The spatiotemporal contrast in the community structure suggests the separation of two groups (northern and southern) whose boundary is located around Punta Eugenia. The northern group showed an alternate dominance of species with a subarctic-transitional faunistic affinity during the winter and spring and species of a subtropical affinity during summer–autumn. In contrast, the dominant taxa in the southern group have a tropical–subtropical affinity throughout the year, although some taxa of subarctic-transitional affinity also occur during winter–spring. In the spatiotemporal scale, these results suggest that the major cause that modulates the extension and structure of the assemblages is the seasonal oceanic dynamics. Moreover, the intensity of warming or cooling events (El Niño and La Niña) influences the structure of the community on an interannual scale by displacing the zonal boundaries of the groups’ distribution.

RESPONSIBLE EDITOR:

• Eric Hilton

KEYWORDS:

• California Current
• community composition
• demersal species
• fish larvae
• habitat associations

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the IMECOCAL program (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACyT grants G0041T, 017Pñ–1297 and G35326T) and the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) (Secretaria de Investigación y Posgrado, SIP grants 20140138 and 20150637). We thank the staff of the Laboratorio de Plancton at Centro de Investigación Científica y Educación Superior de Ensenada for collecting and processing the samples. We thank S.P.A. Jiménez-Rosenberg for her help in the identification of fish larvae (period 1997–2000) and E. Anaya-Godínez (period 2006–2010). RD acknowledges sabbatical grant support from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC) and CONACyT, and is a visiting Professor at IPN-CICIMAR (Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas). MTPA received CONACyT and BEIFI (Beca de Estímulo Institucional de Formación de Investigadores) fellowships. RFR, RGA, and PML are COFAA (Comisión de Operación y Fomento de Actividades Académicas) and EDI (Estímulos al Desempeño de los Investigadores)-IPN grant recipients.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

René Funes-Rodríguez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6139-0861

Pablo Del Monte Luna http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9526-0846