Comment on 'Spawning dynamics of the eastern gemfish (Rexea solandri) in relation to regional oceanography'

Temporal trends through the winter seasons in commercial landings of easter n gemfish (Rexea solandri) during the years 1977-79, 1982-85, 1986-87 and 1 989-92 were reasonably stable for given latitudes, despite variable oceanog raphic influences, as depicted by 250 m isotherm data. This suggests that t he overall pattern of occurrence of pre-spawning aggregations of eastern ge mfish in these periods was determined by a combination of time of the seaso n and latitude, rather than by oceanographic factors. Between 1986 and 1996 , only four instances were identified where gemfish catches contained >10% of 'running ripe' females, and the variety of oceanographic conditions unde r which these catches were made provides little support for the hypothesis that eastern gemfish spawn into subsurface plumes of upwelled sub-Antarctic water.