Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry.
Argyrosomus regius (commonly referred to as meagre), is one of Europe's largest coastal bony fish species and supports important recreational and commercial fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Demand for this species, and more recently for their swim bladders, has led to regiona...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2023-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288706&type=printable |
| _version_ | 1797394643079397376 |
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| author | Alexander Claus Winkler Lily Bovim Bruno C L Macena Miguel Gandra Karim Erzini Pedro Afonso David Abecasis |
| author_facet | Alexander Claus Winkler Lily Bovim Bruno C L Macena Miguel Gandra Karim Erzini Pedro Afonso David Abecasis |
| author_sort | Alexander Claus Winkler |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Argyrosomus regius (commonly referred to as meagre), is one of Europe's largest coastal bony fish species and supports important recreational and commercial fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Demand for this species, and more recently for their swim bladders, has led to regional population declines and growing importance as an aquaculture species. Despite intense research in captivity, little is known about the spatial ecology of A. regius's wild population, including basic information such as vertical migrations and depth/temperature preferences. Previous research based on indirect data suggests a seasonal habitat shift from shallow to deeper waters, but this has never been validated through direct high-resolution movement data. In this study, we tagged 13 adult A. regius with pop-up satellite archival tags in the South of Portugal, which successfully returned data from 11 individuals including high-resolution data from six recovered tags (mean, range: 167 days, 28-301 days). We found that adults of this population spend 95.2% of their time between 5 and 75 m depth (mean ± SD, 30.9m ± 18.3m) and do not venture beyond 125 m. Across seasons, A. regius move across water temperatures between 13.3 and 24.8°C with a preferred thermal range between 14 and 18°C where they spent 75.4% of their time. The inferential modelling using this electronic data validated previous hypotheses by showing significant differences between a shallower and warmer summer habitat vs. a deeper and cooler winter habitat. Visual investigation of the diel effects on depth preferences suggests subtle changes in depth use between day and night during the warmer months of the year. We speculate that these patterns are in response to the species' behavioural ecology and physiology, reflecting the seasonal changes in water stratification and presence of prey, as well as on the species reproduction, which results in summer spawning aggregations in shallower areas. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:22:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cceacf3ffbeb467ab1193d0b9c268f20 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T00:22:44Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-cceacf3ffbeb467ab1193d0b9c268f202023-12-12T05:33:44ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032023-01-011811e028870610.1371/journal.pone.0288706Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry.Alexander Claus WinklerLily BovimBruno C L MacenaMiguel GandraKarim ErziniPedro AfonsoDavid AbecasisArgyrosomus regius (commonly referred to as meagre), is one of Europe's largest coastal bony fish species and supports important recreational and commercial fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Demand for this species, and more recently for their swim bladders, has led to regional population declines and growing importance as an aquaculture species. Despite intense research in captivity, little is known about the spatial ecology of A. regius's wild population, including basic information such as vertical migrations and depth/temperature preferences. Previous research based on indirect data suggests a seasonal habitat shift from shallow to deeper waters, but this has never been validated through direct high-resolution movement data. In this study, we tagged 13 adult A. regius with pop-up satellite archival tags in the South of Portugal, which successfully returned data from 11 individuals including high-resolution data from six recovered tags (mean, range: 167 days, 28-301 days). We found that adults of this population spend 95.2% of their time between 5 and 75 m depth (mean ± SD, 30.9m ± 18.3m) and do not venture beyond 125 m. Across seasons, A. regius move across water temperatures between 13.3 and 24.8°C with a preferred thermal range between 14 and 18°C where they spent 75.4% of their time. The inferential modelling using this electronic data validated previous hypotheses by showing significant differences between a shallower and warmer summer habitat vs. a deeper and cooler winter habitat. Visual investigation of the diel effects on depth preferences suggests subtle changes in depth use between day and night during the warmer months of the year. We speculate that these patterns are in response to the species' behavioural ecology and physiology, reflecting the seasonal changes in water stratification and presence of prey, as well as on the species reproduction, which results in summer spawning aggregations in shallower areas.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288706&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Alexander Claus Winkler Lily Bovim Bruno C L Macena Miguel Gandra Karim Erzini Pedro Afonso David Abecasis Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. PLoS ONE |
| title | Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. |
| title_full | Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. |
| title_fullStr | Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. |
| title_short | Depth and temperature preferences of meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as revealed by satellite telemetry. |
| title_sort | depth and temperature preferences of meagre argyrosomus regius as revealed by satellite telemetry |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288706&type=printable |
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