Spawning Migrations of the Atlantic Goliath Grouper along the Florida Atlantic Coast
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Fish Tagging
2.2. Acoustic Tracking and Monitoring
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Fish Capture and Tagging
3.2. General Detection Patterns
- (1)
- Fish #058 (180 cm TL, female): July 2011—moved 222 km between Ponce Inlet and an artificial reef near the St. Lucie Inlet in 9 days (~25 km d−1);
- (2)
- Fish #060 (186 cm TL, female): (a) July 2011—moved 252 km between Ponce Inlet and a natural reef site near the Jupiter Inlet in 22 days (~11.5 km d−1); (b) August 2012—moved 438 km between a site inside Cumberland Sound (near the Florida—Georgia state border) and the spawning site MG-111 in 10 days (~44 km d−1);
- (3)
- Fish #417 (194 cm TL, female): (a) August 2013—moved 175 km between Cape Canaveral and the Sun Tug spawning site over 12 days (~14.5 km d−1); (b) late July to early August 2014—moved 184 km between Cape Canaveral and the Sun Tug spawning site over 13 days (~14 km d−1); (c) late July to early August 2015 moved 419 km between Cumberland Sound to sites near the St Lucie Inlet in 15 days (~28 km d−1); (d) August 2016—moved 424 km from Cumberland Sound to an artificial reef near the St. Lucie Inlet over 13 days (~32.6 km d−1); (e) July to August 2017—moved 430 km between Cumberland Sound and the St Lucie Inlet in 21 days (~20.4 km d−1). Note that although we were no longer monitoring the six focal FSA sites after July 2015 and thus cannot confirm that fish #417 returned to one of these FSAs, this individual was detected at other sites located within 10 km of confirmed FSA sites during both the 2015 and 2016 spawning seasons.
3.3. Spawning Site Fidelity
3.4. Aggregation Formation
3.5. Size and Sex Differences in Movement Patterns
3.6. Catchment Area and Kernel Density Analyses
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Investigating Attrition Rate of Detected Fish
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Year | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
No. fish detected | 34 | 34 | 26 | 13 |
No. fish detected at FSA site | 31 | 32 | 21 | 12 |
% of fish detected at FSA site | 91.2% | 94.1% | 80.8% | 92.3% |
Year | Zion Train | Three Holes | MG-111 | Sun Tug | Gary’s | Hole-in-the-Wall |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 6 |
2012 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 5 |
2013 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 6 |
2014 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
Year | No. Fish | Mean Arrival Date ± SE | Latest Arrival Date |
---|---|---|---|
2011 | 19 | August 8 ± 4.5 | 20 September |
2012 | 25 | August 2 ± 5.6 | 3 October |
2013 | 14 | August 16 ± 7.7 | 14 October |
2014 | 8 | August 11 ± 9.2 | 14 September |
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Ellis, R.D.; Koenig, C.C.; Locascio, J.V.; Malinowski, C.R.; Coleman, F.C. Spawning Migrations of the Atlantic Goliath Grouper along the Florida Atlantic Coast. Fishes 2023, 8, 398. https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8080398
Ellis RD, Koenig CC, Locascio JV, Malinowski CR, Coleman FC. Spawning Migrations of the Atlantic Goliath Grouper along the Florida Atlantic Coast. Fishes. 2023; 8(8):398. https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8080398
Chicago/Turabian StyleEllis, Robert D., Christopher C. Koenig, James V. Locascio, Christopher R. Malinowski, and Felicia C. Coleman. 2023. "Spawning Migrations of the Atlantic Goliath Grouper along the Florida Atlantic Coast" Fishes 8, no. 8: 398. https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8080398
APA StyleEllis, R. D., Koenig, C. C., Locascio, J. V., Malinowski, C. R., & Coleman, F. C. (2023). Spawning Migrations of the Atlantic Goliath Grouper along the Florida Atlantic Coast. Fishes, 8(8), 398. https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes8080398