Figure 5: Eel collection sites.
From: Oceanic spawning ecology of freshwater eels in the western North Pacific
Preleptocephalus catch locations of the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, in five different years (largest circles) and of the giant mottled eel, Anguilla marmorata, in 2 years (medium sized pink circles) are shown in relation to where adult eels were collected (three yellow ovals, Fig. 2), and the location of the grid of stations (blue rectangle) where 31 A. japonica eggs were collected (red square) just south of the salinity front (dotted red line) that crossed the southern end of the seamount chain in May 2009. The salinity front forms from higher tropical rainfall in the south, and its position appears to affect the latitude of spawning by adult eels2,31,32. A. japonica preleptocephalus catches are shown for 2005 (ref. 36; red circles), 2007 (blue circles), 2008 (green circles Leg 1, yellow circles Leg 2) and 2009 (KH-09-02, white circles) with large circles containing the number of preleptocephali collected, and small circles of the same colour showing no-catch stations during each of those cruises. Small circles of other colours were stations of other cruises in different months or years that did not collect preleptocephali (2005-Leg 4: orange, 2006-Leg 3: purple, 2006-Leg 5: light purple, 2007-Leg 3: light blue, 2009-KH-09-1: grey). Stations in which 29 preleptocephali of A. marmorata, were collected in 2006 (darker pink) and 2007 (lighter pink) are also shown, and two other A. marmorata preleptocephali were collected at 13.5°N, 137°E in August 2006 (ref. 15). Bathymetric depth is shown by colour, with shallower depths <4,000 m in yellow and brown and deeper depths in blue. Three shallow seamounts10 are shown with black triangles. Black scale bar, 50 km.
