Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras) spawning grounds on the Lithuanian coast: current status and shaping factors *

During the 2009 and 2010 seasons Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras L.) spawning grounds were investigated by SCUBA divers off the Lithuanian Baltic Sea coast. The most important spawning substrate was a hard bottom overgrown with red algae Furcellaria lumbricalis, but only 32.8% of potentially suitable spawning locations had herring eggs. Bottom geomorphological analysis using multibeam bathymetry revealed that the distribution of spawning beds is not random, but is determined rather by small-scale geomorphological features. The majority of the detected spawning locations were on local elevations characterised by 2.4 ± 1.1 m depth differences and 4.8 ± 1.8 slopes.