Abstract
The bigeye notothen, Trematomus tokarevi, is a rare nototheniid fish with a putative circum-Antarctic distribution. Due to its prevalent deep water occurrence, this species is rarely caught and its biology poorly known. In addition, this species has been often misidentified with Trematomus nicolai, a morphologically similar species with a partially overlapping distribution. The odd catch of a few specimens of T. tokarevi in the southern Weddell Sea enabled us to provide for the first time preliminary data on reproductive traits and individual age of this species. Fish sample consisted of five females, collected in the austral summer north east of the Filchner Trough at about 750 m depth. Based on histological analyses of gonads, smaller females were in early developing phase, whilst larger ones were regressing, suggesting a summer spawning season, as reported elsewhere. The analysis of growth rings pattern of sagittal otoliths allowed to estimate the individual age, which ranged between 4 and 10 years. In conclusion, this species exhibits most of the common biological traits described in other trematomids, although with some peculiarities, showing at the same time low fecundity and small egg size at spawning.
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Acknowledgements
We would like sincerely thank the captain, the crew members and the scientific personnel working aboard the RV Polarstern during the cruise ANT-XXXI/2 (PS96) for their invaluable support during the field sampling activities. We thank Thomas Desvignes, Mauricio F. Landaeta and an anonymous reviewer for the valuable comments on the early version of manuscript. The study was conducted within the project 2013/C1.07, with the financial support of the Italian National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA).
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MLM conceived and wrote the paper; FD performed the histological analysis of gonads; ER participated to the field sampling and lab activities. All authors contributed significantly to the analysis and interpretation of data, as well as to the manuscript editing before submission.
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La Mesa, M., Donato, F. & Riginella, E. Biological aspects of a rare nototheniid fish, Trematomus tokarevi, from the Weddell Sea (Antarctica). Polar Biol 44, 2049–2053 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02928-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02928-y