Otolith

Abstract: The chronological properties of otoliths are unparalleled in the animal world, allowing accurate estimates of age and growth at both the daily and the yearly scale. Based on the successes of calcified structures as environmental proxies in other taxa, it was logical that researchers should attempt to link otolith biochronologies with otolith chemistry. With the benefit of hindsight, this anticipation may have been naive. For instance, the concentrations of many elements are lower in the otolith than in corals, bivalves, seal teeth, or the other bony structures of fish, making them less than ideal for elemental analyses. Nevertheless, there is growing interest in the use of otolith chemistry as a natural tag of fish stocks. Such applications are directed at questions concerning fish populations rather than using the fish as a passive recorder of the ambient environment and do not rely upon any explicit relationship between environmental variables and otolith chemistry. The questions that can be addressed w...

Abstract: Growth back-calculations from otoliths assume that the relationship between fish and otolith length is linear through time. The final (or observed) individual fish-otolith ratios are then combined ...

Abstract: in ever-increasing numbers, researchers wish to extract information based on chemi - cal analyses from otoliths to determine movements and life-history patterns of fish. such analyses make assumptions about chemical incorporation and interpretation that are beyond those that are important for stock discrimination studies, another common application. The authors aim to clarify the methods of determining fish movement based on natural and artificial otolith chemical tags and review current trends in determining movement using otolith chemistry, otolith sampling methods, and what influences otolith chemistry. both spatial and temporal variability in water and otolith chemistries, which underpin the assumptions of several methods, are discussed. Five methods for determining movement and migration of fish are outlined: (1) estimates of movement and life-history traits of a single fish group, (2) assessing connectivity among groups using natural chemical tags in otoliths, (3) transgenerational marks to determine parentage and natal origins, (4) profile analysis to define life-history variation within a population and (5) profile analysis to describe movements through different environments. Within each of these methods, background information, specific hypotheses being tested and assumptions and limitations of each technique are provided. Finally,