Doctoral Dissertation: The Link Between Parental Care Behavior and Recruitment in Largemouth Bass

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The goal of the proposed study is to examine the importance of parental care behavior to recruitment (defined here as survival of a year class to age-1) of largemouth bass. Largemouth bass males build nests, court females to those nests, spawn with them, and then provide care for their young as they develop from newly spawned eggs to independence as age-0 juveniles. Individual variation in behavior and nest-specific DNA fingerprints, generated with microsatellite DNA markers, will be used to determine both the relative contribution of each nest to the population of juveniles surviving their first growing season and the influence of care behavior on these contributions. Variation in parental protection of young likely causes differences among nests in vulnerability to nest predators, however, the effect of this nest-level variation on recruitment has not been tested.This study addresses the growing need in population ecology for examination of links between important population processes, such as recruitment, and individual differences in behavior. Furthermore, identification of mechanisms responsible for determining recruitment success in fishes is crucial for proper management of commercial and sport fisheries. More specifically, this study will advance our understanding of the role of parental care in largemouth bass recruitment.