Abstract
Permit (Trachinotus falcatus) occupy a variety of coastal marine habitats and support valuable recreational fisheries in their home region of the Caribbean Sea. As an aggregate spawning species, Permit require careful management in locations such as the Florida Keys where they experience substantial fishing pressure. We used acoustic telemetry to examine Permit residency patterns over 4 years amongst 12 high-residency sites that are likely important spawning (natural or artificial reefs) or foraging (seagrass flats) habitats. Residency was highest in artificial reefs, supporting previous research that suggests Permit have high fidelity to these habitats compared to seagrass flats and natural reefs on the Florida Reef Tract, which are highly connected. Residency peaked in the spring and summer months in most sites, with a marked decline in the late fall, suggesting potential undetected movement outside the region during that period. Permit exhibited high residency at an important spawning site in March, indicating that this spawning aggregation is vulnerable to fishing pressure with current regulations, which protect Permit from April through July. Seagrass flats in close proximity (<10 km) to spawning locations are likely of high importance to Permit as a food source during the extensive spawning season. Permit residency was generally consistent amongst water temperatures, although residency patterns varied with temperature amongst sites. Residency at natural reef spawning sites increased leading up to the full moon, which is a potential spawning cue for this species. These findings build on a body of recent research on Florida Keys Permit, providing residency information over space and time that may help to further guide the development of marine protected areas and fisheries regulations.
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Data availability
Data associated with this work will be made available upon reasonable request. Because these data describe the space use of an exploited species, it is prudent to restrict access to raw data.
All procedures were conducted in accordance with the Carleton University Animal Care Committee (application 11473), as well as the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (IACUC protocol 2013-0031, University of Massachusetts Amherst). The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Aaron Adams, Andy Danylchuk, and Steve Cooke are Guest Editors of this special issue, but they were not involved in the peer review of this article and had no access to information regarding its peer review.
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Funding
This project was funded by Bonefish & Tarpon Trust with support from Costa Del Mar, The March Merkin Fishing Tournament, Hell’s Bay Boatworks, and private donations. Additional support was provided by a NASEM Gulf Research Program through a hurricane recovery grant, and the acoustic receiver array was partially supported by a loan from the Ocean Tracking Network. We thank the fishing guides and anglers who assisted with the telemetry array design and Permit tagging for this project including Captains Travis and Bear Holeman, Will Benson, Rob Kramarz, Zack Stells, Brandon and Jared Cyr, Chris Trosset, Nathaniel Linville, Ian Slater, Augustine Moss, Sandy Horn, Ted Margo, Richard Berlin, and Jeff Rella. We also thank the researchers who shared permit acoustic telemetry detection data with us through integrated Tracking of Animals in the Gulf (iTAG) and Florida Acoustic Telemetry Network (FACT), in particular Harold “Wes” Pratt of Mote Marine Laboratory, funded by The Shark Foundation/Hai Stiftung, and Mike McAllister. Thank you to Dr. Susan Lowerre-Barbieri from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for providing acoustic receiver coverage. Brownscombe is supported by a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, Dalhousie University, Carleton University, and Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. This research was conducted with permission of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary under permit # FKNMS-2013-040-A2 and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission under permit # SAL-16-1205.
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Brownscombe, J.W., Griffin, L.P., Morley, D. et al. Spatial-temporal patterns of Permit (Trachinotus falcatus) habitat residency in the Florida Keys, USA. Environ Biol Fish 106, 419–431 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-022-01332-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-022-01332-7