EVALUATING THE USE OF SPAWNING SUCCESS TO ESTIMATE REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS IN A CARIBBEAN REEF FISH

Observations on egg batch production by known female Stegastes partitu s and the fates of those egg batches within the nests of known males r evealed that spawning success was not a reliable predictor of hatching success and, hence, reproductive success because of high egg batch mo rtality. Moreover, while numbers of eggs per batch increased with incr easing female length, both inter- and intra-individual variation in ba tch size was considerable, demonstrating that spawning events cannot b e considered equivalent. These two findings indicate that spawning suc cess cannot be assumed to provide a direct quantitative substitute for a measure of reproductive success in this benthic spawning reef fish. (C) 1995 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles