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http://dx.doi.org/10.4217/OPR.2019.41.4.233

Age Structure and Biomass of the Icefish Pseudochaenichthys georgianus Norman (Channichthyidae) Between 1976 and 2009: a Possible Link to Climate Change  

Traczyk, Ryszard (Department of Oceanography and Geography, University of Gdansk)
Meyer-Rochow, Victor Benno (Department of Ecology and Genetics, Oulu University)
Publication Information
Ocean and Polar Research / v.41, no.4, 2019 , pp. 233-250 More about this Journal
Abstract
A re-assessment of the age structure of the population of the Antarctic icefish Pseudochaenichthys georgianus based on body length data covering the years 1976-2009 and including larvae and postlarvae collected in 1989 and 1990 allowed us to define age groups 0, I, and II as containing fish with respective body lengths of 6-9 cm, 15-27 cm and 27-39 cm. Age at maturity (first spawning) was found to occur in age group III at body lengths that have been falling from 50.1 cm in 1979 to 45.4 cm in 1992. Considering postlarvae together with adult fish, the v. Bertalanffy growth curve parameters were determined as L∞ = 60.62 cm, k = 0.4, t0 = 0.25. Although the reasons for a maturity at shorter body lengths is not fully understood a host of environmental factors like increasing water temperatures and possibly changes in currents, interspecific competition, food availability, etc. are likely to be involved. Global warming (and not primarily overfishing) is likely to have been responsible for the disappearance of larger fish in the surface waters of South Georgia since 1977, for virtually all commercial fishing stopped in the early 1990s. On the other hand, the appearance of numerous younger spawning individuals suggests that larvae do survive in the colder deeper water below 200 m. The biomass of Ps. georgianus oscillates with a 4-year periodicity in contrast to that of the coexisting icefish Chaenocephalus aceratus: the former with a lower biomass in warm years and a higher one in cold years. The biomass of the third species of icefish in the region, i.e. Champsocephalus gunnari, also oscillates, but with a longer periodicity than that involved in the biology of the other two and its biomass increases in contrast to the other two species. The result is that the biomass all three species considered together is rather stable.
Keywords
Antarctica; teleost; fish population; stock assessment; growth; recruitment; age classes; climate change;
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