Reproductive seasonality of southern African inshore and estuarine invertebrates – a biogeographic review

Abstract

A literature review reveals that reproductive seasonality of less than 1% of South Africa’s inshore marine invertebrates has been studied. Approximately 95% of studies have been on large, long-lived, gonochoristic, iteroparous species, and nearly 50% on molluscs. There is only a weak relationship between biogeographic region and timing of reproduction. Nevertheless, a relatively large proportion of west coast species studied breed in winter, whereas south coast species tend to have...