Movements and Habitat Utilization of Two Longbill Spearfish Tetrapturus pfluegeri in the Eastern Tropical South Atlantic Ocean

Authors

David W. Kerstetter, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Eric S. Orbesen
S. Robert Snodgrass
Eric Prince, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

ORCID

0000-0002-4440-8767

ResearcherID

I-5396-2012

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Bulletin of Marine Science

ISSN

0007-4977

Publication Date

9-2009

Abstract

The longbill spearfish Tetrapturus pfleugeri Robins and de Sylva, 1963, is a small istiophorid billfish found in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas that occurs as an infrequent by-catch in recreational and commercial pelagic fisheries. Although some data exist on diet and reproduction based on dead specimens, little is known of the species’ habitat preferences or individual movement patterns. In 2004, two longbill spearfish were tagged with pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) near Ascencion Island in the South Atlantic for 11 d and 45 d. Individual movement tracks derived from light-based geolocation estimates suggested little relationship with sea surface temperature fronts, although both animals demonstrated a clear preference away from the West African subsurface hypoxic plume. Overall temperature at depth distributions for both fish were narrow; between 22–26 °C for 97% and 82% respectively of the total time at liberty durations. Almost all of the 8-h time-at-depth periods for both day and combined periods showed that these two fish remained within 150 m of the surface. However, time at depth utilization analyses suggest a slightly bimodal distribution, with the majority of the time at depths < 25 m and a secondary grouping at 50–100 m. Depth utilization data are consistent with the hypothesis that interactions between this species and deep-set pelagic longline fisheries for bigeye tuna in the eastern tropical South Atlantic occurs primarily at set and retrieval of the gear.

Volume

85

Issue

2

First Page

173

Last Page

182

Comments

©2009 Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami

Additional Comments

The authors would like to thank all the participating partners of the “Adopt-A-Billfish” research program for making this project possible, including R. Andrews of The Billfish Foundation who funded the study.

NSUWorks Citation

David W. Kerstetter, Eric S. Orbesen, S. Robert Snodgrass, and Eric Prince. 2009. Movements and Habitat Utilization of Two Longbill Spearfish Tetrapturus pfluegeri in the Eastern Tropical South Atlantic Ocean .Bulletin of Marine Science , (2) : 173 -182. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/539.