Habitat Utilization and Vertical Movements of White Marlin (Tetrapturus albidus) Released from Commercial and Recreational Fishing Gears in the Western North Atlantic Ocean: Inferences from Short Duration Pop-up Archival Satellite Tags

Authors

Andrij Horodysky, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
David W. Kerstetter, Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceFollow
Robert J. Latour, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
John E. Graves, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

ORCID

0000-0002-4440-8767

ResearcherID

I-5396-2012

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Fisheries Oceanography

ISSN

1054-6006

Publication Date

5-2007

Keywords

Behavior, Fishery management, Habitat, Pelagic fisheries, Tagging, White marlin

Abstract

behavioral and oceanographic parameters to standardize historical catch-per-unit-effort time-series data. These methods have allowed researchers to account for significant changes in the depths of pelagic longline (PLL) gear deployments over time. This study presents habitat-use data recovered from high-resolution 5- and 10-day pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) attached to 47 surviving white marlin released from commercial and recreational fishing gears offshore of the U.S. East Coast, the northern Caribbean, and Venezuela between 2002 and 2004. Data recovered from transmitting tags indicated that white marlin spent nearly half of their time associated with warm, near-surface waters (<10 m). All fish displayed frequent short duration (mean: 39.8 min) vertical excursions from surface waters to depths averaging 51 m. Qualitative and multivariate classifications of data from completely transmitted movements of surviving white marlin revealed two major types of descents: one pattern was characterized by deep ‘V’-shaped excursions of relatively short duration (mean: 23.4 min) while the other featured descents that were more broadly ‘U’-shaped and confined to a specific depth range for an extended period of time (mean: 75.8 min). Based on the frequency, persistence, and patterns of these vertical movements, white marlin appear to direct a considerable proportion of foraging effort well below surface waters, a behavior that may account for relatively high catch rates of white marlin on some deep-set PLL deployments.

DOI

10.1111/j.1365-2419.2007.00419.x

Volume

16

Issue

3

First Page

240

Last Page

256

Comments

©2007 The Authors.

NSUWorks Citation

Andrij Horodysky, David W. Kerstetter, Robert J. Latour, and John E. Graves. 2007. Habitat Utilization and Vertical Movements of White Marlin (Tetrapturus albidus) Released from Commercial and Recreational Fishing Gears in the Western North Atlantic Ocean: Inferences from Short Duration Pop-up Archival Satellite Tags .Fisheries Oceanography , (3) : 240 -256. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/552.