Michael J. Miller

The spawning areas of the Atlantic freshwater eels were discovered about a century ago by the Danish scientist Johannes Schmidt who after years of searching found newly hatched larvae of the European eel, Anguilla anguilla, and the American eel, Anguilla rostrata, in the southern Sargasso Sea. The discovery showed that anguillid eels migrate thousands of kilometers to offshore spawning areas for reproduction, and that their larvae, called leptocephali, are transported equally long distances by o

What eel larvae feed on in the surface layer of the ocean has remained mysterious. Gut contents and bulk nitrogen stable isotope studies suggested that these unusual larvae, called leptocephali, feed at a low level in the oceanic food web, whereas other types of evidence have suggested that small zooplankton are eaten. In this study, we determined the nitrogen isotopic composition of amino acids of both natural larvae and laboratory-reared larvae of the Japanese eel to estimate the trophic posit

Abstract The three northern hemisphere anguillid eel species experienced recruitment declines at similar times beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, but the exact causes of the declines have remained unclear. Attention focused on two categories of possible causes that included (i) anthropogenic impacts on eel growth habitats, such as dam construction, degradation and pollution of habitats, introduction of parasites, overfishing and (ii) changes in ocean-atmospheric conditions affecting their marine

Species assemblages of leptocephali are described in relation to density in the Subtropical Convergence Zone (STCZ) of the Sargasso Sea. Seven transects across fronts were made during four cruises in the late winter or early spring of 1983, 1985 and 1989. About 50 species from 13 families of eels were collected at 66 stations, but fewer than 10 species were abundant in all transects. Four oceanic species, two Anguilla species and Conger oceanicus appeared to be spawning in the STCZ. Leptocephali

It has been known for about a century that European eels have a unique life history that includes offshore spawning in the Sargasso Sea about 5000-7000 km away from their juvenile and adult habitats in Europe and northern Africa. Recently hatched eel larvae were historically collected during Danish, German and American surveys in specific areas in the southern Sargasso Sea. During a 31 day period of March and April 2014, Danish and German research ships sampled for European eel larvae along 15 a

Recruitment declines of anguillid eels are difficult to understand because both anthropogenic impacts on juveniles and adults and oceanic changes affecting larval survival or dispersal may be contributing. Anguillid larvae may passively disperse widely from offshore spawning areas but late-stage larvae or glass eels apparently must swim directionally to reach recruitment habitats. Their long larval durations vary among tropical (∼3–4 months) and temperate species (5 months to >1 year). The bo

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 235:279-288 (2002) - doi:10.3354/meps235279 Distribution of leptocephali in the Kuroshio Current and East China Sea Michael J. Miller1,*, Tsuguo Otake2, Gen Minagawa1, Tadashi Inagaki1, Katsumi Tsukamoto1 1Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minamidai, Nakano, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan 2Fac

Regional assemblages of leptocephali of 5 families of shelf eels (Chlopsidae, Congridae, Moringuldae, Muraenidae and Ophichthidae) from the Sargasso Sea and Florida Current were compared with hydrographic features and adult distributions. There were 2 major patterns in the distributions of the >37 species of leptocephali that were collected. First, more species and greater abundances were found at or south of fronts in the Subtropical Convergence Zone (STCZ) of the Sargasso Sea, with the most di