Reproductive traits and their effects on embryos and larvae of vendace, Coregonus albula L. Part I. Fish and gonad attributes

Abstract

Egg and milt quality of vendace collected from four lakes over four spawning seasons was analyzed. Particular attention was paid to the degree of determination of some reproductive attributes by somatic characteristic and by environment. Vendace in these lakes differed greatly with respect to growth rate and to abundance, but variation of the majority of gonad attributes did not exceed 20% of their overall means. Age of females explained utmost 13.4 per cent of variability of egg diameter, of egg dry weight, of egg caloric content and of lipids in eggs. Origin of fish and years of collecting were responsible for a greater fraction of variance of egg and of testicle attributes. Majority of the variability remained unexplained indicating large variance within samples which masks the other effects.