Fabien Morat

French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · CRIOBE - Perpignan

Anguilla marmorata, A. megastoma, and A. obscura live in the freshwater habitats of tropical islands spread across the western half of the South Pacific from New Caledonia to French Polynesia, but little is known about their early life histories or spawning areas in the eastern region. Otolith microstructure examinations of 455 glass eels from Moor...

The otolith shape of the Indian halibut, Psettodes erumei, from the Persian Gulf, Hormuz Strait and the Oman Sea were studied to discriminate the fish populations in small-scale fisheries. Indian halibut is a commercially valuable flatfish species abundantly caught in the north of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea. Identifying different stocks is one o...

Using strontium (Sr) and barium (Ba) in otoliths to determine natal origins and understand patterns of fish movements is based on the fundamental assumption that otoliths record water chemistry signals without any major alterations. Although prior studies highlighted that fish physiology can modify the water signal in otoliths, studies for freshwat...

An otolith shape and morphometric analysis was performed on European eel (Anguilla anguilla) subpopulations from five rivers and three coastal lagoons of Sardinia (central-western Mediterranean) to assess the role of different habitats on otolith development. Sagittal otolith shape was described by 11 harmonics from elliptic Fourier descriptors. Co...

Introduction: Characterizing the thermal habitat of fish is key to understanding their ecological requirements in order to make appropriate management plans for the preservation of fish populations in the context of climate change. Little is known about the thermal habitat of the early life stages of fish (larvae and juveniles), as most methods hav...

Human impact increasingly alters global ecosystems, often reducing biodiversity and disrupting the provision of essential ecosystem services to humanity. Therefore, preserving ecosystem functioning is a critical challenge of the twenty-first century. Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to the pervasive effects of climate change and intensive fi...

Long-term surveys confirm the rapidity of environmental and biological changes undergone by endangered species but that also concerned relatively “tolerant” species, especially common rheophilic species such as European chub (Squalius cephalus, Linnaeus 1758). As many organisms, fish are highly vulnerable during their first life stages. Body size i...

• Trait-based approaches are increasingly used to study species assemblages and understand ecosystem functioning. The strength of these approaches lies in the appropriate choice of functional traits that relate to the functions of interest. However, trait–function relationships are often supported by weak empirical evidence. • Processes related to...

• In the context of the River Rhône restoration programme, the objective of this study was to assess the dispersal and population connectivity of the European chub, Squalius cephalus (Linnaeus, 1758) in a section of the natural, free-flowing part of the lower River Rhône. • The elemental water signatures for Sr:Ca and Ba:Ca were measured at seven s...

Somatic growth is a critical biological trait for organismal, population, and ecosystem-level processes. Due to its direct link with energetic demands, growth also represents an important parameter to estimate energy and nutrient fluxes. For marine fishes, growth rate information is most frequently derived from sagittal otoliths, and most of the av...

Energy flow and nutrient cycling dictate the functional role of organisms in ecosystems. Fishes are key vectors of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in aquatic systems, and the quantification of elemental fluxes is often achieved by coupling bioenergetics and stoichiometry. While nutrient limitation has been accounted for in several stoic...

While otolith shape analysis can provide a valuable tool for discriminating between fish populations, factors which may influence otolith shape, such as the effect of size, directional asymmetry in growth, and local environmental conditions, are often unknown. Here, we analyzed differences in otolith shape across three size classes of age-0 common...

Anthropogenic stressors have strong impacts on ecosystems. To understand their influence, detailed knowledge about trophic relationships among species is critical. However, this requires both exceptional resolution in dietary assessments and sampling breadth within communities, especially for highly diverse, tropical ecosystems. We used gut content...

This assesses features of otoliths from laboratory‐reared embryos, larvae and juvenile European chub Squalius cephalus from hatching to 180 days post‐hatching (dph). We observed the development of the three pairs of otoliths (lapilli, sagittae and asterisci) and more precisely shape changes, as well as timing and deposition rate of increments of th...

This study used otolith microchemistry to evaluate whether the moray eel Gymnothorax chilospilus uses different habitats throughout its life (mainly juvenile and adult phases). Of the most informative trace elements within otoliths (the twelve isotopes ²³Na, ²⁵Mg, ⁴³Ca, ⁵⁵Mn, ⁵⁹Co, ⁶⁰Ni, ⁶³Cu, ⁶⁶Zn, ⁸⁶Sr, ¹¹¹Cd, ¹³⁸Ba and ²⁰⁸Pb) only three ratios o...

Floods are known to be the major source of natural variability and disturbance in stream ecosystems. However, the management and channelisation of large rivers have impacted the fluvial geomorphology and disconnected the main channel and floodplains used as nurseries by many species of fish. This study examines the influence of a first autumnal flo...

The present study describes the otolith shape and age of three species of Gobiidae: Neogobius melanostomus (Pallas, 1814), Ponticola eurycephalus (Kessler, 1974) and Mesogobius batrachocephalus (Pallas, 1814) from the Western part of the Black Sea. these phylogenetically close species showed otolith shape differences. the round goby, Neogobius mela...

Le corb, Sciaena umbra, est une espèce longévive à croissance lente très convoitée par les chasseurs sous-marins. Cette pression de chasse a contribué à la diminution des effectifs et à une raréfaction des individus de grande taille hors des réserves marines. En 2014, en réponse à ce déclin, un moratoire de cinq ans a été mis en place pour protéger...

Otolith shape analyses were conducted on two species of barracudas (Sphyraena sphyraena and Sphyraena viridensis) from the gulf of annaba (south-western Mediterranean). The otolith shape was described by elliptic Fourier descriptors from 14 harmonics and by five indices of shape (coefficient of form, roundness, circularity, rectangularity and ellip...

Chemical contamination levels and stable isotope ratios provide integrated information about contaminant exposure, trophic position and also biological and environmental influences on marine organisms. By combining these approaches with otolith shape analyses, the aim of the present study was to document the spatial variability of Hg and PCB contam...

Un niveau de contamination chimique mesuré dans un poisson est-il toujours le reflet du niveau de contamination environnementale ?

Analysis of the C-O stable isotope composition of coral reef fish otoliths from Taiaro, a French Polynesian atoll normally isolated from the Pacific Ocean, has been performed to address two main questions. The first is to confirm previous results which suggest that a lagoonal coral reef fish population is able to achieve its ontogenetic cycle witho...

Quantifying the scale and importance of individual dispersion between populations and life stages is a key challenge in marine ecology. The common sole (Solea solea), an important commercial flatfish in the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, has a marine pelagic larval stage, a benthic juvenile stage in coastal nurseries (lagoons,...

The diet of shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis desmarestii was studied in a NW Mediterranean archipelago (Marseilles, France) through the analysis of 109 regurgitation pellets during the non-breeding period (April to September) from 2004 to 2007. A total of 2 462 pairs of fish otoliths was found in pellets. These fishes belong to 12 families and 25 spe...

To test the hypothesis that both otoliths (left and right sagittae) of a flatfish, Solea solea (Linnaeus, 1758), display the same elemental fingerprint information, we analyzed whole-otolith preparations from coastal lagoons and marine sites in the NW Mediterranean for the presence of 15 elements (7Li, 24Mg, 27Al, 44Ca 52Cr, 55Mn, 56Fe, 59Co, 60Ni,...

Knowledge of fish life cycles is important for exploited species. In the Mediterranean Sea, catches of common sole ( Solea solea ) have fluctuated widely since the 1970s. Solea solea displays an ontogenetic shift in habitat: sole larvae are marine, juveniles inhabit shallow marine waters and coastal lagoons and adults inhabit deeper marine waters....

Knowledge of fish life cycles is important for exploited species. In the Mediterranean Sea, catches of common sole (Solea solea) have fluctuated widely since the 1970s. Solea solea displays an ontogenetic shift in habitat: sole larvae are marine, juveniles inhabit shallow marine waters and coastal lagoons and adults inhabit deeper marine waters. Al...

The commercially important marine flatfish common sole (Solea solea) facultatively uses NW Mediterranean lagoons as nurseries. To assess the imprint left by the lagoonal passage, muscle carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotope values of S. solea juveniles caught in Mauguio lagoon in spring (shortly after arrival from the sea) and in autumn (before the r...

Otolith shape analysis has been used in a number of studies as an inexpensive and powerful method for categorising fish in individual stocks. Elliptical Fourier analysis was used on three different amphidromous Sicyopterus species. Sicyopterus lagocephalus is a widespread species while the other two have a limited distribution area, Sicyopterus aie...

Otolith shape analyses were conducted on three different species of Mullidae (Mullus barbatus barbatus, M. b. ponticus and M. surmuletus). The otolith shape was described by 19 harmonics from elliptic Fourier descriptors. In a first step, their comparison through canonical discriminant analyses (CDA) was run for all fish with right otoliths, left o...

Despite the interest of studying animal populations at the limit of their geographical distribution, little is known about the shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) in the extreme southern part of its range. In this study, the diet of the Mediterranean shag subspecies (P. a. desmarestii) was studied in the Riou Archipelago (French Mediterranean coast) t...

Otolith morphometrics have been shown to provide a practical basis for stock discrimination and subsequent fisheries management. However, the determinants of otolith shape are not fully understood and analysis does not distinguish between genotype and environmentally induced differences. In this context, understanding how those 2 components act syn...

Stable isotope ratios in muscle (C, N) and otolith (C, O), and otolith microchemistry were analysed in common soles when they entered a coastal lagoon in spring and when they returned to the sea in autumn. Fingerprints of lagoonal life were observed both in muscle and otolith, but were fixed for the whole life of fish in otoliths only.

The study focused on small-scale location and movement patterns of the bluestripe snapper Lutjanus kasmira on the north coast of Moorea (Society Archipelago, French Polynesia, south-central Pacific). Juveniles of this species occur in the estuary, and adults occur widely in the lagoon, the outer slope and in the intermediate channel, where fish agg...

The relationship between fish size and otolith size was established for nine species from different geographical areas, the Mediterranean basin, Kerguelen Islands and the tropical Pacific Ocean. For all species, a significant linear relationship was found between fish size and otolith size. However, the 'lake ecotype' of the brown trout (Salmo trut...

Abstract –  Otoliths preserve a continuous record of the life cycle from the natal through the adult stage. For that reason, the morphological and chemical characteristics of otoliths of two nonnative Salmonids, brown trout (Salmo trutta) and brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis) from populations on the Kerguelen Islands were compared. Several approa...