Group spawning may drive predator
habitat use for lemon sharks, may inform fisheries management
Date: May 4, 2016
Source: PLOS
Three species of shark, tiger,
lemon and Caribbean reef, all use deeper coral reefs in the Virgin Islands, but
only lemon shark presence was associated with seasonal grouper spawning
aggregations, according to a study published May 4, 2016 in the open-access
journal PLOS ONE by Alexandria Pickard from Nova Southeastern
University, Florida, Bradley Wetherbee of the University of Rhode Island and
colleagues.
Groupers and other fish often
spawn together in coral reefs at depths between 30 and 150 meters in the
Caribbean, and these aggregations may make them easy pickings for predators.
However, little is known about coral ecosystems at these depths when compared
to shallow coral reefs. To quantify spatio-temporal patterns of reef use for
three species of shark, the authors of this study analyzed data from acoustic
transmitters placed on 18 sharks--6 lemon sharks, 10 tiger sharks, and 2
Caribbean reef sharks--that were tracked with acoustic receivers covering an
area of more than 1,000 square kilometers near the island of St. Thomas.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!