A rapid approach to evaluate putative nursery sites for penaeid prawns

• A study design and analytical approach to trace emigrating prawns to putative nurseries is presented.
• Bivariate isotopic data was sufficient to distinguish prawns from different putative nurseries.
• Approximately 90% of adult prawns could be assigned to putative nursery sites.
• This simple approach is useful to understand the relative importance of estuarine nursery habitats.

Identifying nursery habitats for an aquatic species generally requires tracing adult individuals back through time and space to the area or habitat in which they developed as juveniles. We develop and trial a study design and analytical approach to evaluate the suitability of using stable isotopes to trace emigrating prawns to putative nursery sites, and evaluate assumptions inherent in the application of the approach using two penaeid species with Type-II life cycles: Penaeus (Melicertus) plebejus and Metapenaeus macleayi. Prawns were collected in putative nursery sites within the Hunter River, Australia, and analysed as composite samples of 6 individuals to provide habitat-specific isotopic signatures. Prawns emigrating from the mouth of the river were used as a proxy for individuals recruiting to the adult population, and assigned to putative nursery sites using a probabilistic mixing model and a simple, distance-based approach. Bivariate (δ15N and δ13C) isotopic data was sufficient to distinguish prawns from different putative nursery sites, and isotopic composition correlated closely with salinity. Approximately 90% of emigrating prawns collected could be assigned to these sites using bivariate isotopic data, and both analytical approaches gave similar results. The design developed here is broadly applicable to a suite of penaeid species, but its application will be most powerful when sampling is also aimed at understanding nursery function by simultaneous monitoring of size structure/growth, density, and trophic relationships within nursery habitats.