NOCTURNAL FISH USE OF NEW-JERSEY MARSH CREEK AND ADJACENT BAY SHOAL HABITATS

Night-time sampling with gill nets in the Little Egg Harbor estuary re vealed a component of the estuarine fish fauna, hitherto poorly docume nted, which is comprised of relatively large size classes of juvenile and adult life history stages. The fishes Mustelus canis, Pomatomus sa ltatrix, Paralichthys dentatus, Brevoortia tyrannus, Prionotus evolans and Alosa mediocris were the most abundant fishes captured. These obs ervations suggest that Mid-Atlantic Bight estuaries are important nurs eries for juvenile stages beyond the first year, as well as for the yo ung of the year (YOY). Although many other studies emphasise the impor tance of estuaries as nurseries for YOY stages, the importance of estu aries to later juvenile life stages has been largely overlooked. This component of estuarine fish fauna has been poorly represented in previ ous North American studies because of probable gear avoidance, and bec ause most studies are conducted primarily during the day. The authors hypothesise that these later juvenile stages are likely to be importan t estuarine faunal components in other geographic regions, as well as in the Mid-Atlantic Bight. A descriptive comparison of catches between ebb and flood tide stages, and between bay shoal and tidal marsh cree k habitats, suggests that later juvenile and adult stages of several s pecies make tidal migrations into shallow estuarine habitats, such as shoals and marsh creeks, during the night hours. (C) 1997 Academic Pre ss Limited.