The management of invasive Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus in Chesapeake Bay tributaries is hindered by the lack of information on its reproductive biology, which is a key component of population models used to forecast abundance. We quantified and compared the reproductive traits of female Blue Catfish from two populations from the tidal reaches of the James and York River subestuaries during 2015–2017. In these systems, Blue Catfish matured between the ages of 6 and 10 years and spawned between May and July, with larger fish spawning earlier in the season. During spawning events, Blue Catfish produced 2,613–68,356 eggs, with larger and older fish producing more eggs. Fish in the more densely populated James River matured at a marginally older age but a significantly smaller size than fish in the York River, but James River fish allocated more energy to reproduction. Fish in the James River also had greater mean values of the gonadosomatic index, relative fecundity, egg organic content, and proportion of organic content in the eggs. Relative fecundity of Blue Catfish decreased with fish size, contrary to observations in most other fishes. Based on the observed variability in reproductive traits and the size dependence of relative fecundity, we recommend incorporation of population‐specific reproductive rates into stock assessment models for invasive Blue Catfish.

中文翻译：

---

蓝Cat鱼两个入侵种群的生殖特性不同

入侵蓝Blue鱼Ictalurus furcatus的管理切萨皮克湾支流的生殖生物学信息不足，这是用来预测丰度的人口模型的重要组成部分，因此受到阻碍。我们量化并比较了2015–2017年来自詹姆斯和约克河河口潮汐带的两个种群的雌性蓝Cat鱼的繁殖特性。在这些系统中，蓝Cat鱼在6到10岁之间成熟，并在5月到7月之间产卵，较大的鱼在季节的早期产卵。在产卵期间，蓝Cat鱼产卵2,613–68,356卵，较大和较老的鱼产卵更多。人口稠密的詹姆士河中的鱼类成熟年龄稍长，但其大小却比约克河中的鱼类小得多，但詹姆斯河中的鱼类为繁殖提供了更多的能量。詹姆斯河中的鱼类的性腺体指数，相对繁殖力，卵中有机物含量以及卵中有机物含量的比例也更高。蓝Cat鱼的相对繁殖力随鱼的大小而降低，这与大多数其他鱼的观察结果相反。根据观察到的繁殖性状的变异性和相对繁殖力的大小依赖性，我们建议将特定种群的繁殖率纳入入侵蓝Blue鱼种群评估模型。