Hi;

I'm writing to the list on behalf of a friend of mine who cannot contact you.
He recently sent me an e-mailing, mentioning some results about the
distribution of Engraulis australis in North-East Australia.
His message says:

"In my data, Engraulis
australis spawn at 2 very different areas: 1 is right deep inside the
estuary where the water exchange rate is almost zero, the other one is out
at sea where there are a lot of water exchanges, water turbulence, busy
traffic, lots of predators,etc...
Now, i want to find out the reason why do they do that? This species is
having the same spawning behaviour every where, in southern Australia, in
Western Australia, in Queensland.
The only reason i can think of is this spawning
behaviour occur because these are 2 sub-species of the one Engraulis
australis species."

I found this observation very interesting. According to him, Engraulis
australis is not the only fish which behaves that way... Eg. Gobiopterus
semivestita, a goby species, is having exactly the same spawning behaviour.

Has anyone came accross the same results before?
What do you think could be the explanation of these fishes spawning in 2
different environments, however not too far away in distance?
Could it be a matter of evolution, or are there other possible explanations?

Thanks for sending your reply to myself, as well as to Tri Pham who is
conducting this work. His e-mail address is: [log in to unmask]

Cheers
Valerie

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