Spatio-temporal resolution of spawning and larval nursery habitats using otolith microchemistry is element dependent

Abstract

Otolith chemistry is frequently employed in the reconstruction of fish environmental histories. While some elements have been strongly correlated with environmental factors (e.g. salinity, temperature, water chemistry), others may not indicate exogenous factors and simply add endogenous variability to a data set. Several commonly assessed elements were previously identified as being only present in the proteinaceous fraction of endolymph from black bream Acanthopagrus butcheri, suggesting that the choice of elements in otolith multi-elemental fingerprinting could influence their utility as natural environmental markers. To test this hypothesis, we performed several cluster analyses based on ..