Meagre Argyrosomus regius (Asso, 1801) is a vocal sciaenid fish emitting calls during spawning. In fish, acoustic communication may influence reproductive success, and factors affecting sound characteristics can be important to consider in conservation and aquaculture management.
The effect of temperature on temporal features of breeding signals in sciaenids is scarcely studied: however, a shortening pulse period with temperature was reported for weakfish. In this study, the effect of temperature on pulse period and sound duration of breeding calls in wild meagre from the Tagus estuary, Portugal, was investigated. Sound duration but mainly pulse period was found to decrease significantly with temperature.
As known from previous studies, pulse period shortening in meagre can also be associated with approaching spawning, and monitoring this change in calls was suggested to have a potential for predicting spawning events in meagre aquaculture.
However, new knowledge on a similar effect of temperature on pulse period suggests that predictions of spawning events can be adjusted considering temperature. Besides, the application of such acoustic monitoring may be adapted to detecting spawning grounds and predicting spawning events in wild meagre, thus being a promising conservation tool.
