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More than 75% of the species important in fisheries off the southeast U.S. Atlantic coast have estuarine life stages (Fox 1992). The common life‐history strategy for the majority of these species involves fall–winter spawning on the continental shelf followed by transport of larvae to nearshore habitats or through tidal inlets where they enter the estuary and settle in shallow nursery habitats (Miller 1988; Ortner et al. 1999). After a residency in estuarine habitats for one or more years, individuals emigrate from the estuary and enter the spawning stock.
A critical stage of this life‐history pattern is the passage through narrow inlets or into mouths of estuaries that connect the ocean and estuarine habitats. These pathways to nursery habitats are few in number along much of the Atlantic coast of the United States and therefore serve as bottlenecks to recruitment for many species (Reyier and Shenker 2007). Coastal inlets and estuary mouths may also be suitable locations from which to observe and monitor the population status of these stocks, as every individual must pass through an inlet at least once during its life. For some species, however, the use of shallow nearshore ocean habitat may also be important (Able 2005).
The Beaufort Inlet Ichthyoplankton Sampling Program is the longest consecutive ichthyoplankton sampling program along the U.S. East Coast, providing a 22‐year time series of larval fish ingress through Beaufort Inlet, one of five major inlets that connect the Atlantic Ocean to North Carolina estuaries. Research using these data has described the timing and variability of immigration (Hettler and Chester 1990) and the age and size characteristics of larvae (Warlen 1992), along with permitting inferences on the spawning sources and stock structure (Burke et al. 2000), mechanisms of larval transport (Hare et al. 1999), and relationships between environmental variables and recruitment (Hare and Able 2007).
Evidence suggests that year‐class strength is strongly influenced by environmental conditions during larval transport and ingress, such as the processes associated with nearshore winds and river discharge, which drive water mass circulation along the coast (Checkley et al. 1988; Hare et al. 1999). For example, nearly 77% of the variation...