Complex life histories discovered in a critically endangered fish.

ABSTRACT: Effective conservation of endangered species requires knowledge of the full range of life-history strategies used to maximize population resilience within a stochastic and ever-changing environment. California's endemic Delta Smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) is rapidly approaching extinction in the San Francisco Estuary, placing it in the crossfire between human and environmental uses of limited freshwater resources. Though managed as a semi-anadromous species, recent studies have challenged this lifecycle model for Delta Smelt, suggesting the species is an estuarine resident with several localized "hot-spots" of abundance. Using laser-ablation otolith strontium isotope microchemistry, we discovered three distinct life-history phenotypes including freshwater resident (FWR), brackish-water

SUBMITTER: Hobbs JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6856525 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature