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Summer Ichthyoplankton Assemblage Diversity Within a Southeastern United States Estuary

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Abstract

We evaluated spatial, short-term, and decadal-scale variability in the summer ichthyoplankton assemblages within the North Inlet-Winyah Bay estuarine system, Georgetown County, South Carolina, USA. Ichthyoplankton were collected weekly from late May to early September 2016 on nighttime flood tides using a 1-m diameter, 1-mm mesh plankton net at three sites of varying salinity and proximity to inlets. Nearly 30,000 fishes representing 59 taxa were collected from all three sites over the 14-week study period. Gobiidae and Anchoa spp. dominated the overall community, composing between 69 and 94% of the total catch at each of the three sites. Weekly densities of all taxa combined did not vary between sites, yet diversity metrics (richness, evenness, Shannon-Weiner index, and Simpson’s index) were greatest at the highest salinity site, and overall assemblage composition significantly varied among sites. Non-metric multidimensional scaling suggested a shift in the assemblage at all sites corresponding to an increase in water temperature throughout the summer. Differences in family-level assemblage composition between this study and previous work from the 1980s were detected, differences which may be indicative of regional-scale environmental change. Overall, the summer ichthyoplankton assemblages resembled those from other estuaries along the southeastern US Atlantic coast and temperate regions worldwide, generally dominated by a few taxa and composed of a mixture of estuarine-, estuarine and nearshore-, and continental shelf-spawning taxa.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank faculty, staff, and students from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center (J. Dozier), USC Baruch Marine Field Laboratory (D. Allen, E. Haffey, M. Kennedy, P. Kenny), Cornell College Rogers Fellowship in Environmental Studies program (R. Bulger, J. Tesensky), Wofford College (K. Dickson), and Converse College (K. Moorhouse) for their assistance with this study. This research was conducted in accordance with the guidelines set forth in the University of South Carolina Institutional Animal Care and Use (IACUC) Protocol #2154-100810-040814. This is contribution no. 1881 of the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences.

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Funding for this research was provided by the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.

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Correspondence to Bruce W. Pfirrmann.

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Pfirrmann, B.W., Kimball, M.E., Mace, M.M. et al. Summer Ichthyoplankton Assemblage Diversity Within a Southeastern United States Estuary. Estuaries and Coasts 44, 253–268 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-020-00777-2

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