Comparative variation in spawning output and juvenile recruitment of some Caribbean reef fishes

Spawning and recruitment of six species of Caribbean damselfishes (Pomacentridae) were monitored at a site in Panama. Intermensual variation in recruitment strength exceeded corresponding variation in spawning output by average factors of at least 1.5-3.0 (and perhaps as much as 4-20) among those species. Serial changes in seasonally-adjusted monthly spawning output and "resultant' recruitment strength were not correlated in any species. Thus, regardless of whether or not local populations are self-recruiting, pelagic processes evidently do largely control, and substantially enhance, short-term variability in recruitment strength in these fishes. Interannual variation in recruitment was low in all but one species, in which it also exceeded variation in spawning. Thus control of variation in recruitment strength by short-term pelagic processes had little or no net effect on interannual variation in recruitment in most cases. -from Authors