Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-24T22:04:24.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contributions to the Biology of the Mackerel, Scomber Scombrus L.: Mackerel Migrations in the English Channel and Celtic Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

G. A. Steven
G. A. Steven
Affiliation:
Zoologist at the Plymouth Laboratory
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the English Channel and Celtic Sea mackerel spend the winter months on the sea floor densely packed in places where its level is interrupted by banks and gulleys.

In the early spring the fish rise to the surface and migrate to a common spawning ground that lies far out to the westward of the Scilly Islands in the vicinity of the 100-fathom contour.

The very localized positions in which mackerel spend the winter are widely distributed throughout the area in both deep and shallow water. Large schools of migrating fish converge upon the spawning ground from many directions, therefore, in the spring for spawning.

Fish that have wintered near the land must migrate offshore to reach the spawning ground; those that spend the winter on the bottom to seaward of the spawning ground must migrate shorewards to reach it. Off the south-west of England there is no single shoreward migration to spawn in shallow water as has previously been thought.

In the North Sea the chief spawning grounds of the mackerel are also near the 100-fathom contour which, in that region, happens to lie very close to the land in the Skagerrak and along the Norwegian coast. The chief spawning migration of the North Sea mackerel is therefore towards the coast from offshore localities.

This migration is, at the same time, chiefly from shallow to deeper water.

Existing information concerning the mackerel populations on the westernside of the North Atlantic points to the probability that their spawning habits and migratory movements do not differ greatly from those of the mackerel in North European waters.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , November 1948 , pp. 517 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1948

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCE

Allen, E. J., 1897. Report on the present state of knowledge with regard to the habits and migrations of the mackerel (Scomber scomber). Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. V, pp. 1–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, Henry B., 1925. Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XL, for 1924, Pt. 1, pp. 1–567. [Section on mackerel, pp. 188–208.]Google Scholar
Brown Goode, G., 1879. A history of the menhadan. U.S. Comm. of Fish and Fisheries: Commissioner's Report for 1877 (1879), pp. 1–529. [Section on mackerel migrations, pp. 50–71.]Google Scholar
Brown Goode, G., 1884. Materials for a history of the mackerel fishery. I. Natural history. U.S. Comm. of Fish and Fisheries: Commissioner's Report for 1881 (1884), pp. 91–138Google Scholar
Buchanan-Wollaston, H. J., 1911. Report on the results of the fish-egg cruise made by the S.S. Huxley in June, 1909. North Sea Investigations Committee; Fishery and Hydrographical Investigations in the North Sea and Adjacent Waters, pp. 207–34. London.Google Scholar
Bullen, G. E., 1908. Plankton studies in relation to the western mackerel fishery. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. VIII, pp. 269–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderwood, W. L., 1892. Monthly reports on the fishing in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. II, pp. 277–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderwood, W. L., 1892. Monthly reports on the fishing in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. II. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. 11, pp. 394–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calderwood, W. L., 1893. Monthly reports on the fishing in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. III. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. III, pp. 107–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cligny, A., 1905. Les prétendues migrations du maquereau. Ann. Sta. Aquicole, Boulogne-sur-Mer, N.S., T. I, pp. 97–100.Google Scholar
Cligny, A., Le stationnement du hareng et du maquereau sur le fond avant la ponte et son importance pour la pêche au chalut. Ann. Sta. Aquicole, Boulogne-sur-Mer, N.S., T. II, pp. 121–48.Google Scholar
Collins, J. W., 1883. Notes on the movements, habits, and capture of mackerel for the season 1882. Bull. U.S. Fish Commission, Vol. II, pp. 273–85.Google Scholar
Corbin, P. G., 1947. The spawning of the mackerel Scomber scombrus L., and pilchard Clupea pilchardus Walbaum, in the Celtic Sea in 1937–39, with observations on the zooplankton indicator species Sagitta and Muggiaea. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. XXVII, pp. 65–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, J. T., 1889. Studies of the reproduction and development of teleostean fishes occurring in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. I, pp. 10–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannevig, , Alf., 1918. Canadian fish eggs and larvae. Can. Fish. Expdn. 1914–15, Dept. Nav. Service, Ottawa, 1918, pp. 1–74.Google Scholar
Day, Francis, 1880–84. British Fishes. [Vol. I, pp. 83–91 and plates XXXII and XXXIIL]Google Scholar
Dunn, Matthias, 1893. The mackerel. Rep. Cornwall Polytechnic Soc., pp. 1–15.Google Scholar
Ehrenbaum, E., 1912. Report on the mackerel. Preliminary account. Cons. Perm.Int. Expl. Mer: Rapp. Proc.-verb., Vol. XIV, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar
Ehrenbaum, E., 1914. The mackerel and the mackerel fishery. Cons. Perm. Int. Expl. Mer: Rapp. Proc.-verb., Vol.XVIII, Special Report, pp. 1–101.Google Scholar
Ehrenbaum, E., 1923. The mackerel. Spawning—larval and postlarval forms—age groups—food—enemies. Cons. Perm. Int. Expl. Mer: Rapp. Proc.-verb., Vol. xxx, pp. 1–39.Google Scholar
Green, W. S., 1894. Notes on the Irish mackerel fisheries. Bull. U.S. Fish Commission, Vol. XIII, pp. 357–60.Google Scholar
Hind, Henry Youle, 1877. The effect of the fishery clauses of the treaty of Washington on the fisheries and fishermen of British North America. Fishery Commission, Halifax, 1877, pt. II.Google Scholar
Le Gall, J., 1928. Notes sur le maquereau. Revue des Travaux de l'Office des Pêches Maritimes. T. I, Fasc. I, p. 54.Google Scholar
Le Gall, J., 1935. La pêche du maquereau. Man. des pêches maritimes françaises. Mémoires de l'Office des Pêches Maritimes (Seérie spéciale), No. 10, Fasc. 2, pp. 78–92Google Scholar
Malm, A. W., 1877. GÖteborgs och Bohusläns Fauna, pp. 408–12.Google Scholar
Meek, A., 1916. The Migrations of Fish. London: Edward Arnold. [Chapter XXIV, pp. 319–30; mackerels and tunnies.]Google Scholar
Ministry Of Agriculture And Fisheries. Sea Fisheries Statistical Tables for the Years 1906–1938 inclusive. [N.B. Until 1918 the tables were included in the Annual Report on Sea Fisheries. From 1919 onwards the tables have been published separately.]Google Scholar
Rathbun, Richard, 1896. Report upon the inquiry respecting food-fishes and the fishing-grounds. U.S. Comm. of Fish and Fisheries. Commissioner's Report for 1895 (1896), pp. 73–92.Google Scholar
Ridge, R. J., 1889. The mackerel fishery in the west of England. Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc., Vol. I, pp. 72–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, A., 1913. On the pelagic fish eggs collected off the south-west of the Isle of Man. Rep. Lanes. Sea-Fish. Labs., No. XXI, pp. 233–53.Google Scholar
Scott, A., 1914a. The mackerel fishery off Walney in 1913. Rep. Lancs. Sea-Fish. Labs., No. XXII, pp. 19–25.Google Scholar
Scott, A., 1914b. On the pelagic eggs collected in 1913. Rep. Lanes. Sea-Fish. Labs., No. XXII, pp. 26–36.Google Scholar
Sparks, M. I., 1929. The spawning and development of mackerel on the outer coast of Nova Scotia. Contr. Canadian Biol. and Fisheries, N.S., Vol. IV, No. 28, pp. 445–52.Google Scholar
Steven, G. A. & Corbin, P. G., 1939. Mackerel investigation at Plymouth. Preliminary report. Cons. Perm. Int. Expl. Mer: Rapp. Proc.-verb., Vol. CXI, Appendice 2, pp. 15–18.Google Scholar
Thompson, , D'arcy Wentworth (Editor), 1939. Bulletin Statistique des pêches maritimes, Vol. XXVII, pour l'année 1937.Google Scholar
Whitcher, W. F., American theory regarding the migration of the mackerel refuted. Rep. of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada for the year ending 30th june, 1871.Google Scholar
Whitcher, W. F., On the supposed migration of the mackerel. Rep. of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada for the year ending 30th June, 1872.Google Scholar