Habitat Use, Site Fidelity, and Movement of Adult Striped Bass in a Southern New Jersey Estuary Based on Mobile Acoustic Telemetry

Chronic environmental change threatens biodiversity, but acute disturbance events present more rapid and immediate threats. In 2010, a cold snap across south Florida had wide-ranging impacts, including negative effects on recreational fisheries, agriculture, and ecological communities. Here, we use acoustic telemetry and historical longline monitoring to assess the long-term implications of this event on juvenile bull sharks Carcharhinus leucas in the Florida Everglades. Despite the loss of virtually all individuals (ca. 90%) within the Shark River Estuary during the cold snap, the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of age 0 sharks on longlines recovered through recruitment within 6-8 mo of the event. Acoustic telemetry revealed that habitat use patterns of age 0-2 sharks reached an equilibrium in 4-6 yr. In contrast, the CPUE and habitat use of age 3 sharks required 5-7 yr to resemble pre-cold snap patterns. Environmental conditions and predation risk returned to previous levels within 1 yr of the cold snap, but abundances of some prey species remained depressed for several years. Reduced prey availability may have altered the profitability of some microhabitats after the cold snap, leading to more rapid ontogenetic shifts to marine waters among sharks for several years. Accelerated ontogenetic shifts coupled with inter-individual behavioral variability of bull sharks likely led to a slower recovery rate than predicted based on overall shark CPUE. While intrinsic variation driven by stochasticity in dynamic ecosystems may increase the resistance of species to chronic and acute disturbance, it may also increase recovery time in filling the diversity of niches occupied prior to disturbance if resistive capacity is exceeded.

Download Full-text

Stingray Habitat Use Is Dynamically Influenced by Temperature and Tides

Frontiers in Marine Science ◽

10.3389/fmars.2021.754404 ◽

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.

Download Full-text

Patterns of Seasonal Availability and Habitat Use by Fishes and Decapod Crustaceans in a Southern New Jersey Estuary

Estuaries ◽

10.2307/1352529 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 697 ◽

Cited By ~ 65

Author(s):

Stephen T. Szedlmayer ◽

Kenneth W. Able

Keyword(s):

New Jersey ◽

Habitat Use ◽

Decapod Crustaceans

Download Full-text

Site fidelity, vertical movement, and habitat use of nearshore reef fishes on offshore petroleum platforms in southern California

Bulletin of Marine Science ◽

10.5343/bms.2018.0009 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 95 (4) ◽

pp. 657-682 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Carlos Mireles ◽

Christopher JB Martin ◽

Christopher G Lowe

Keyword(s):

Habitat Use ◽

Site Fidelity ◽

Fish Habitat ◽

Reef Fishes ◽

Vertical Movement ◽

San Pedro ◽

Ecological Importance ◽

Bottom Depth ◽

Petroleum Platforms ◽

Offshore Petroleum

Off California, economically important nearshore reef fishes inhabit the shallow (<20 m) regions of offshore petroleum platforms on the San Pedro Shelf (SPS). It is essential to understand the degrees to which platforms support fish over time to indicate whether biological requirements (e.g., shelter, diet, reproduction) are being met. To determine the ecological importance of platforms as fish habitat, the site fidelity and depth/habitat use of adult cabezon, Scorpaenichthys marmoratus (Ayres, 1854), grass rockfish, Sebastes rastrelliger (Jordan and Gilbert, 1880), kelp rockfish, Sebastes atrovirens (Jordan and Gilbert, 1880), and California sheephead, Semicossyphus pulcher (Ayres, 1854) were investigated at platforms Edith (50 m bottom depth) and Eureka (212 m). A total of 63 fish were acoustically tagged and monitored for up to 578 d. Sixty-three percent of individuals were still present at platforms at the end of the study (long-term site fidelity), with 55 individuals detected a mean of 66.9% (SD 36.0%) of their total days at liberty (daily site fidelity). All species displayed a shift in seasonal depth use. The shallowest horizontal level, consisting of various horizontal beams at platform Edith (15 m depth) and Eureka (17 m), was the most utilized habitat by grass rockfish, kelp rockfish, and California sheephead. Cabezon at platform Eureka utilized depths (21–31 m) unassociated with horizontal levels, while at platform Edith they primarily utilized the second horizontal level (30 m). Decommissioning options that remove the shallowest 26 m of structure would eliminate the habitat most utilized by three of the four study species that dominate the nearshore reef fish communities at SPS platforms.

Download Full-text