Environmental drivers of habitat use by a marine fish on a heterogeneous and dynamic reef flat

2019 ◽  
Vol 166 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob W. Brownscombe ◽  
Lucas P. Griffin ◽  
Tyler O. Gagne ◽  
Christopher R. Haak ◽  
Steven J. Cooke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Marine Fish ◽  
Reef Flat ◽  
Environmental Drivers

scholarly journals Stingray Habitat Use Is Dynamically Influenced by Temperature and Tides

2022 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantel Elston ◽  
Paul D. Cowley ◽  
Rainer G. von Brandis ◽  
James Lea
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Acoustic Telemetry ◽  
Monsoon Season ◽  
Abiotic Factors ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Shallow Waters ◽  
Shallow Marine ◽  
Tidal Cycles ◽  
Management Plans ◽  
Passive Acoustic

Abiotic factors often have a large influence on the habitat use of animals in shallow marine environments. Specifically, tides may alter the physical and biological characteristics of an ecosystem while changes in temperature can cause ectothermic species to behaviorally thermoregulate. Understanding the contextual and relative influences of these abiotic factors is important in prioritizing management plans, particularly for vulnerable faunal groups like stingrays. Passive acoustic telemetry was used to track the movements of 60 stingrays at a remote and environmentally heterogeneous atoll in Seychelles. This was to determine if habitat use varied over daily, diel and tidal cycles and to investigate the environmental drivers behind these potential temporal patterns. Individuals were detected in the atoll year-round, but the extent of their movement and use of multiple habitats increased in the warmer NW-monsoon season. Habitat use varied over the diel cycle, but was inconsistent between individuals. Temperature was also found to influence stingray movements, with individuals preferring the deeper and more thermally stable lagoon habitat when extreme (hot or cold) temperature events were observed on the flats. Habitat use also varied over the tidal cycle with stingrays spending a higher proportion of time in the lagoon during the lowest tides, when movement on the flats were constrained due to shallow waters. The interplay of tides and temperature, and how these varied across diel and daily scales, dynamically influenced stingray habitat use consistently between three species in an offshore atoll.

scholarly journals Oceanographic, ecological, and socio-economic impacts of an unusual summer storm in the Mackenzie Estuary

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin C. Scharffenberg ◽  
Dustin Whalen ◽  
Shannon A. MacPhee ◽  
Marianne Marcoux ◽  
John Iacozza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Mackenzie Delta ◽  
Arctic Ecosystems ◽  
Significant Drop ◽  
The Impact

With increased warming and open water due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of storm surges is expected to increase. Although studies have shown that strong storms can negatively impact Arctic ecosystems, the impact of storms on Arctic marine mammals is relatively unknown. In July 2016, an unusually large storm occurred in the Mackenzie Delta while instrumented seabed moorings equipped with hydrophones and oceanographic sensors were in place to study environmental drivers of beluga habitat use during their summer aggregation. The storm lasted up to 88 h, with maximum wind speeds reaching 60 km/h; historical wind data from Tuktoyaktuk revealed a storm of similar duration has not occurred in July in at least the past 28 years. This provided a unique opportunity to study the impacts of large storms on oceanographic conditions, beluga habitat use, and the traditional subsistence hunt that occurs annually in the delta. The storm resulted in increased water levels and localized flooding as well as a significant drop in water temperature (∼10 °C) and caused belugas to leave the area for 5 days. Although belugas returned after the storm ended, the subsistence hunt was halted resulting in the lowest beluga harvest between 1978 and 2017.

scholarly journals Modelling climate change impacts on marine fish populations: process-based integration of ocean warming, acidification and other environmental drivers

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 972-1004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Koenigstein ◽  
Felix C Mark ◽  
Stefan Gößling-Reisemann ◽  
Hauke Reuter ◽  
Hans-Otto Poertner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Marine Fish ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Ocean Warming ◽  
Fish Populations ◽  
Environmental Drivers

scholarly journals Beluga whales in the western Beaufort Sea: Current state of knowledge on timing, distribution, habitat use and environmental drivers

2018 ◽  
Vol 152 ◽  
pp. 182-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Stafford ◽  
Megan C. Ferguson ◽  
Donna D.W. Hauser ◽  
Stephen R. Okkonen ◽  
Catherine L. Berchok ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Beaufort Sea ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Beluga Whales ◽  
Current State ◽  
Sea Current

scholarly journals Environmental Drivers of Habitat Use by Hawksbill Turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) in the Arabian Gulf (Qatar)

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Marshall ◽  
Joshua A. Cullen ◽  
Mehsin Al-Ansi ◽  
Shafeeq Hamza ◽  
Mohamed A. R. Abdel-Moati
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Arabian Gulf ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Eretmochelys Imbricata ◽  
Hawksbill Turtles

scholarly journals Temporal, Environmental, and Biological Drivers of the Mucosal Microbiome in a Wild Marine Fish, Scomber japonicus

mSphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Minich ◽  
Semar Petrus ◽  
Julius D. Michael ◽  
Todd P. Michael ◽  
Rob Knight ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Marine Fish ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Scomber Japonicus ◽  
Chub Mackerel ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ocean Conditions

ABSTRACT Changing ocean conditions driven by anthropogenic activities may have a negative impact on fisheries by increasing stress and disease. To understand how environment and host biology drives mucosal microbiomes in a marine fish, we surveyed five body sites (gill, skin, digesta, gastrointestinal tract [GI], and pyloric ceca) from 229 Pacific chub mackerel, Scomber japonicus, collected across 38 time points spanning 1 year from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Pier (La Jolla, CA). Mucosal sites had unique microbial communities significantly different from the surrounding seawater and sediment communities with over 10 times more total diversity than seawater. The external surfaces of skin and gill were more similar to seawater, while digesta was more similar to sediment. Alpha and beta diversity of the skin and gill was explained by environmental and biological factors, specifically, sea surface temperature, chlorophyll a, and fish age, consistent with an exposure gradient relationship. We verified that seasonal microbial changes were not confounded by regional migration of chub mackerel subpopulations by nanopore sequencing a 14,769-bp region of the 16,568-bp mitochondria across all temporal fish specimens. A cosmopolitan pathogen, Photobacterium damselae, was prevalent across multiple body sites all year but highest in the skin, GI, and digesta between June and September, when the ocean is warmest. The longitudinal fish microbiome study evaluates the extent to which the environment and host biology drives mucosal microbial ecology and establishes a baseline for long-term surveys linking environment stressors to mucosal health of wild marine fish. IMPORTANCE Pacific chub mackerel, Scomber japonicus, are one of the largest and most economically important fisheries in the world. The fish is harvested for both human consumption and fish meal. Changing ocean conditions driven by anthropogenic stressors like climate change may negatively impact fisheries. One mechanism for this is through disease. As waters warm and chemistry changes, the microbial communities associated with fish may change. In this study, we performed a holistic analysis of all mucosal sites on the fish over a 1-year time series to explore seasonal variation and to understand the environmental drivers of the microbiome. Understanding seasonality in the fish microbiome is also applicable to aquaculture production for producers to better understand and predict when disease outbreaks may occur based on changing environmental conditions in the ocean.

Environmental drivers of habitat use by common bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ) in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Greller ◽  
Marilyn Mazzoli ◽  
Elizabeth Titcomb ◽  
Brandy Nelson ◽  
Richard Paperno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Tursiops Truncatus ◽  
Bottlenose Dolphins ◽  
Indian River Lagoon ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Indian River

scholarly journals Environmental drivers of reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) visitation patterns to key aggregation habitats in the Maldives

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252470
Author(s):  
Joanna L. Harris ◽  
Guy M. W. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Use ◽  
Detection Probability ◽  
Full Moon ◽  
High Tide ◽  
Tidal Range ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Eastern Side ◽  
Manta Ray ◽  
Reef Manta Ray

A detailed understanding of the dynamics of small-scale (10s km) habitat use by the reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) in the Maldives Archipelago is required to develop an effective national conservation management plan for this wide-ranging species. Here, a combination of photo-ID sightings data and acoustic telemetry were used to investigate both long-term M. alfredi visitation trends and small-scale movement patterns to key habitats on the eastern side of Baa Atoll (Hanifaru Bay feeding area, Dhigu Thila multifunctional site, and Nelivaru Thila cleaning station). All tagged and most of the sighted M. alfredi exhibited high affinity to the eastern side of Baa Atoll, where 99% of detections occurred, and 69% of individuals were re-sighted in multiple years. Sightings data suggests that visitation patterns may be associated with differences in habitat use by sex and maturity status. Boosted regression trees indicated that tag detection probability at Hanifaru Bay increased with increased westerly wind speed (>5ms-1) during the day, close to a new and full moon just after high tide, and when the tidal range was low. Interaction effects between predictors suggest that wind-driven oceanographic processes, such as Langmuir Circulation, maybe working to increase zooplankton concentration at this location. Tag detection probability increased at Dhigu Thila under similar conditions. At Nelivaru Thila, it increased at lower wind speeds (<5ms-1), close to a full moon, three hours after high tide. These results suggest that M. alfredi may utilise cleaning stations during the day when environmental conditions are not suitable for feeding. There was a high level of connectivity between these three locations, which suggests they form part of a network of key habitats that provide essential services to M. alfredi locally. Future conservation efforts should focus on identifying all areas of key habitat use for this species within the Maldives; applying strict protective measures to these sites and any connecting migration corridors which link them.

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