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

Abstract

A comment on ‘Spawning dynamics of the eastern gemfish (Rexea solandri) in relation to regional oceanography in south-eastern Australia’ by J. D. Prince and D. A. Griffin, Marine and Freshwater Research 52, 611–22.

Temporal trends through the winter seasons in commercial landings of eastern gemfish (Rexea solandri) during the years 1977–79, 1982–85, 1986–87 and 1989–92 were reasonably stable for given latitudes, despite variable oceanographic influences, as depicted by 250 m isotherm data. This suggests that the overall pattern of occurrence of pre-spawning aggregations of eastern gemfish in these periods was determined by a combination of time of the season 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 under which these catches were made provides little support for the hypothesis that eastern gemfish spawn into subsurface plumes of upwelled sub-Antarctic water.