Details:

Alternative Title:
Final report for NOAA Coral Grant NA05NMF4631041
Personal Author:
Meyer, Carl.
Corporate Authors:
United States, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ; Coral Reef Conservation Program (U.S.)
United States, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ; Coral Reef Conservation Program (U.S.) Less -
NOAA Program & Office:
CoRIS (Coral Reef Information System)
Description:
"We need to understand the long-term movement patterns of coral reef fishes in order to design marine protected areas (MPAs) that will provide these animals with effective, long-term protection. We used acoustic telemetry to quantify the movements of parrotfishes, unicornfishes and goatfishes captured inside a Hawaiian MPA (Kealakekua Bay Marine Life Conservation District). We found that parrotfishes and unicornfishes were site-attached to Kealakekua Bay for up to 6 months but that detections of most fishes ceased abruptly within this period, possibly due to emigration. We detected emigration from the MPA by one orangespine unicornfish, which was characterized by increasingly wide-ranging behavior, and eventual departure from the MPA with final detections by a receiver located 2 km N of Kealakekua Bay. Bullethead parrotfishes and sleek uncornfishes that were site-attached to nighttime habitat inside the MPA made daily crepuscular migrations of 500 to 1,800 m between separate day & night habitats. This behavior resulted in bullethead parrotfish home ranges that straddled the NW MPA boundary, with parrotfish ranging up to 1 km outside the MPA boundary by day, and returning to the MPA at night. Natural daily flux of resident fishes back & forth across MPA boundaries may have been misinterpreted as density-dependent 'spillover' in previous mark recapture and visual census studies. Although both parrotfishes and unicornfishes were detected crossing the boundary at the NW end of Kealakekua Bay (which intersected contiguous reef habitat), only 3 sleek unicornfishes (N. hexacanthus) were detected crossing the habitat break at the eastern end of Kealakekua Bay, suggesting that this habitat break may function as a barrier to movements of some species. These results indicate that if the management goal is to retain fish inside MPAs, then MPA boundaries should be located at natural habitat breaks rather than intersecting contiguous habitat"--Summary.
Keywords:
[+]
Behavior Coral Reef Conservation Coral Reef Fishes Habitat Management Marine Parks And Reserves Monitoring
Document Type:
Professional Paper
Place as Subject:
Hawaii ; Kealakekua Bay
Hawaii ; Kealakekua Bay Less -
Rights Information:
Public Domain
Compliance:
Library
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:775cbee777ac9809d5eb998079c51dc3b867739c209c2619afa5f46463297196
Download URL:
https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/10863/noaa_10863_DS1.pdf
File Type:

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