Nearshore environmental conditions influence larval growth and shape changes for a temperate rocky reef fish

Coastal upwelling and other oceanographic processes, exert influences on phenotypic traits of early life stages of marine fishes. However, it remains to elucidate the environmental effects on the morphology of fish larvae. Using geometric morphometrics and otolith microstructure of a temperate rocky reef fish, the labrisomid blenny Auchenionchus crinitus (Labrisomidae), we studied the larval growth, mortality and morphospace of four consecutive cohorts, hatched between austral winter and summer off central Chile. We hypothesize that coastal environmental conditions will influence early life traits of this cryptobenthic fish. The winter cohort, which inhabited colder and well-mixed nearshore waters, grew more slowly and had a more hydrodynamic head shape, while the summer cohort, which lived in warmer and stratified waters, grew faster, but had a more robust shape. Cohorts expressed less ontogenetic allometry as seasons progressed, suggesting that the seasonal increment in water temperature reduces the shape changes with size during larval development. Also, slower- and faster-growing larvae showed large variation from the consensus shape, e.g. had the largest shape disparity. Nonetheless, all cohorts showed similar mortality rates during the first month of life. Finally, increases in zonal wind stress (i.e. sea breeze) and decreases in the sea temperatures (i.e. upwelling events) increased the growth rates of older (> 15 days old) larvae. Therefore, for this cryptobenthic species, differences in growth rate and body shape are related to the seasonal increase in water temperature, and local-scale meteorological conditions.