The Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus has declined throughout its range, and the species is now protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Information on the timing and extent of spawning migrations is essential for the development and implementation of effective management and recovery strategies, yet this information is lacking for most populations. The objectives of this study were to document and identify temporal and spatial patterns in the seasonal movements and spawning migrations of Atlantic Sturgeon in the South Atlantic distinct population segment. A stationary array of acoustic receivers was used to monitor the movements of 45 adults in the Altamaha River system, Georgia, from April 2011 through March 2014. Telemetry data revealed that putative adult spawners exhibited two distinct patterns of upriver migration: a spring two-step migration and a fall one-step migration. During the spring two-step migration, the adults appeared to stage in the upper Altamaha during the spring and early summer, before migrating to suspected spawning habitats in the Ocmulgee and Oconee tributaries during the fall. During the fall one-step migration, fish entered the system in late summer and migrated directly upriver to suspected spawning habitats in the Ocmulgee and Oconee tributaries. Regardless of which pattern was used during the upstream migration, all fish returned downstream and left the system by early January. Although direct evidence of spawning has not yet been obtained, the telemetry and environmental data provide strong circumstantial evidence that Atlantic Sturgeon spawning in the Altamaha population occurs only during the fall months when water temperatures are less than 25°C. These findings further illustrate the clinal variation in the life history of Atlantic Sturgeon and highlight the need to manage the species as distinct population segments with regionally specific recovery goals.
Food provisioning of wildlife is a major concern for management and conservation agencies worldwide because it encourages unnatural behaviours in wild animals and increases each individual's risk for injury and death. Here we investigate the contribu...
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 8(1), 522–535
Description:
An understanding of temporal patterns of migration and spatial connectivity between home ranges and spawning sites is necessary for effective management of species that form transient spawning aggregations. The Nassau Grouper Epinephelus striatus is ...
Lomeli, Mark J. M.; Hamel, Owen S.; Wakefield, W. Waldo;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 149–160
Description:
The limited‐entry bottom trawl fishery for groundfish along the U.S. West Coast operates under a catch share program, which is implemented with the intention of improving the economic efficiency of the fishery, maximizing fishing opportunities, and...
Leo, Jennifer P.; Minello, Thomas J.; Grant, William E.;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 10(3), 347–356
Description:
Brown shrimp Farfantepenaeus aztecus support a commercially important fishery in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and the juvenile shrimp use coastal estuaries as nurseries. Production of young shrimp from these nurseries, and hence commercial harvest of...
Murawski, Steven A.; Peebles, Ernst B.; Gracia, Adolfo;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 10(3), 325–346
Description:
We analyzed the results of the first comprehensive, systematic, fishery‐independent survey of Gulf of Mexico (GoM) continental shelves using data collected from demersal longline sampling off the United States, Mexico, and Cuba. In total, 166 speci...
Altenritter, Megan N.; Zydlewski, Gayle Barbin; Kinnison, Michael T.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 216–230,
Description:
Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus were recently listed as threatened in the Gulf of Maine and endangered in the rest of their U.S. range. Continued research priorities include long-term population monitoring, identifying the species...
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 1–12
Description:
While Pacific salmon are known for their extensive marine migrations, some species display much more limited alternative patterns, including residence within interior marine waters. To more clearly define the scale of movement of these residents, we ...
Tuckey, Troy D.; Fabrizio, Mary C.; Norris, Alicia J.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 564–572
Description:
Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus were purposefully introduced into freshwater tributaries to Chesapeake Bay in the past, and populations have subsequently spread to new areas, negatively impacting native communities and causing concern for resource ma...
McClatchie, Sam; Field, John; Thompson, Andrew R.;
Published Date:
2016
Source:
Royal Society Open Science, 3(3), 1-9
Description:
California sea lions increased from approximately 50 000 to 340 000 animals in the last 40 years, and their pups are starving and stranding on beaches in southern California, raising questions about the adequacy of their food supply. We investiga...
Lomeli, Mark J. M.; Wakefield, W. Waldo; Herrmann, Bent;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 597–611
Description:
In the U.S. West Coast limited-entry (LE) groundfish bottom trawl fishery, catches of stocks with restrictive harvest limits (e.g., Darkblotched Rockfish Sebastes crameri, Sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria, and Pacific Halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis) con...
Assessing the movement patterns and key habitat features of breeding humpback whales is a prerequisite for the conservation management of this philopatric species. To investigate the interactions between humpback whale movements and environmental con...
Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 68(1), 1-10
Description:
GasEx-98 was the first open-ocean process study where gas transfer velocity measurements were made with several robust techniques, including airside eddy covariance of CO2 and deliberate injection of 3He and SF6. While the CO2 eddy covariance results...
Harford, W. J.; Smith, S. G.; Ault, J. S.; Babcock, E. A.;
Published Date:
2016
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 8(1), 147–159
Description:
In the Florida Keys coral reef ecosystem, delineation of reef fish distributions in relationship to habitat patterns is important for improving the design characteristics of fishery-independent surveys. Efficient survey design depends on analysis of ...
Acoustic communication is an important aspect of reproductive, foraging and social behaviours for many marine species. Northeast Pacific blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) produce three different call types—A, B and D calls. All may be produced as...
Jackson, Jennifer A.; Carroll, Emma L.; Smith, Tim D.;
Published Date:
2016
Source:
Royal Society Open Science, 3(3), 1-16
Description:
Accurate estimation of historical abundance provides an essential baseline for judging the recovery of the great whales. This is particularly challenging for whales hunted prior to twentieth century modern whaling, as population-level catch records a...
Sagarese, Skyler R.; Frisk, Michael G.; Cerrato, Robert M.;
Published Date:
2016
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 8(1), 244–262
Description:
This study examines the potential uncertainty in survey biomass estimates of Spiny Dogfish Squalus acanthias in the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NES LME). Diel catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) estimates are examined from the N...
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 8(1), 1–15
Description:
The spatial and temporal extent of summer hypoxia (dissolved oxygen [DO] concentration ≤ 2 mg/L) in Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries has been increasing for decades, consequently affecting fish distribution and abundance by shifting biomass to no...
Parsons, Kim M.; Everett, Meredith; Dahlheim, Marilyn;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Royal Society Open Science, 5(8), 1-12
Description:
Determining management units for natural populations is critical for effective conservation and management. However, collecting the requisite tissue samples for population genetic analyses remains the primary limiting factor for a number of marine sp...
Arnold, Linsey M.; Smith, Wade D.; Spencer, Paul D.;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Royal Society Open Science, 5(1), 1-11
Description:
Despite evidence of maternal age effects in a number of teleost species, there have been challenges to the assertion that maternal age intrinsically influences offspring quality. From an evolutionary perspective, maternal age effects result in young ...
Oceanic fronts are key habitats for a diverse range of marine predators, yet how they influence fine-scale foraging behaviour is poorly understood. Here, we investigated the dive behaviour of northern gannets Morus bassanus in relation to shelf-sea f...
Altenritter, Megan N.; Zydlewski, Gayle Barbin; Kinnison, Michael T.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 9(1), 216–230,
Description:
Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus were recently listed as threatened in the Gulf of Maine and endangered in the rest of their U.S. range. Continued research priorities include long-term population monitoring, identifying the species...
Fox, Adam G.; Wirgin, Isaac I.; Peterson, Douglas L.;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 10(6), 606–618
Description:
The Atlantic Sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus is an anadromous species that historically has been found along the Atlantic coast of North America from maritime Canada to the St. Johns River, Florida. Decades of overharvest and habitat loss ha...
Damon-Randall, Kimberly; Bohl, Russell Joseph, 1981-; Bolden, Stephania K.; Fox, Dewayne Allen; Hager, Christian Harding, 1968-; Hickson, Brian; Hilton, Eric James, 1974-; Mohler, Jerre W.; Robbins, Erika; Savoy, Thomas Francis; Spells, Albert Jerome, 1955-;
Corporate Authors:
Northeast Fisheries Science Center (U.S.)
Published Date:
2010
Series:
NOAA technical memorandum NMFS-NE ; 215
Description:
"The objectives of this document are (1) provide Atlantic sturgeon researchers with guidelines for conducting research to ensure that the safest, most recent, and effective techniques are used; and (2) compile the most recent literature review to sup...
This report describes baseline economic and regulatory conditions, overall economic impacts, impacts on national security, and other relevant impacts associated with the designation of fourteen separate occupied critical habitat units for the Carolin...
File Type:
[PDF - 6.27 MB]
Exit
Notification/Disclaimer Policy
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the NOAA website.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal Website does not constitute an
endorsement by NOAA or any of its employees of the sponsors
or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy
policy when you follow the link.
NOAA is not responsible for Section 508 compliance
(accessibility) on other federal or private websites.