Movements, Home Range and Site Fidelity of Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) within a Temperate Marine Protected Area

RESEARCH ARTICLE Movements, Home Range and Site Fidelity of Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) within a Temperate Marine Protected Area David Harasti1*, Kate A. Lee2, Christopher Gallen1, Julian M. Hughes3, John Stewart3 1 Fisheries Research, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Nelson Bay, NSW, 2315, Australia, 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, Australia, 3 New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, New South Wales, 2088, Australia a11111 * Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Harasti D, Lee KA, Gallen C, Hughes JM, Stewart J (2015) Movements, Home Range and Site Fidelity of Snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) within a Temperate Marine Protected Area. PLoS ONE 10(11): e0142454. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0142454 Editor: Fabiano L. Thompson, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL Received: June 22, 2015 Accepted: October 20, 2015 Published: November 6, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Harasti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Raw data from the acoustic listening stations are accessible from the Australian Animal Tracking and Monitoring System National Database available at: https://aatams.emii. org.au/aatams/ <https://aatams.emii.org.au/aatams/>. Understanding the movement dynamics of marine fish provides valuable information that can assist with species management, particularly regarding protection within marine protected areas (MPAs). We performed an acoustic tagging study implemented within the Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Park on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia, to assess the movement patterns, home range and diel activity of snapper (Chrysophrys auratus; Sparidae); a species of significant recreational and commercial fishing importance in Australia. The study focused on C. auratus movements around Cabbage Tree Island, which is predominantly a no-take sanctuary zone (no fishing), with an array of acoustic stations deployed around the island and adjacent reefs and islands. Thirty C. auratus were tagged with internal acoustic tags in November 2010 with their movements recorded until September 2014. Both adult and juvenile C. auratus were observed to display strong site fidelity to Cabbage Tree Island with a mean 12-month residency index of 0.83 (range = 0 low to 1 high). Only three fish were detected on acoustic receivers away from Cabbage Tree Island, with one fish moving a considerable distance of ~ 290 kms over a short time frame (46 days). The longest period of residency recorded at the island was for three fish occurring regularly at the site for a period of 1249 days. Chrysophrys auratus displayed strong diurnal behaviour and detection frequency was significantly higher during the day than at night; however, there was no significant difference in detection frequency between different hours. This study demonstrates that even small-scale protected areas can benefit C. auratus during multiple life-history stages as it maintains a small home range and displays strong site fidelity over a period of 3 years. Funding: This study was supported by NSW Recreational Fishing Trust (Project DPI60) (to JS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Introduction Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. During the past century, tagging of marine fish has provided information on short-term movements and species home ranges [1], and given an insight into large scale migrations of various PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0142454 November 6, 2015 1 / 20 Movements of Snapper within a Small-Sized MPA species [2–4]. Monitoring of fish movements has been done using various tagging methods, such as conventional ‘dart and anchor’ and elastomer tags [5–7] and satellite tags [8, 9]. More recently, the use of acoustic tags has become a core method for assessing fish movements [10]. During the past decade, advancements in acoustic technologies have led to increased battery life and tag miniaturisation allowing for species to be monitored for much longer periods of time, providing longer term data sets on movements [11]. Movement data collected from acoustic tagging studies can be used to determine site fidelity and species home ranges [12–14] and habitat utilisation [15, 16]. This information may contribute to species protection through the implementation of fishing closures or designs of protected areas [17, 18]. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been implemented worldwide and play important roles in management of fisheries resources, conserving marine biodiversity, protection of sensitive habitats and enhancing eco-tourism [19–21]. Numerous studies have shown MPA’s to be successful in promoting habitat recovery, particularly coral reefs [22, 23], ensuring genetic connectivity [24] and providing economic benefits to local communities through increased tourism and improved fisheries [25–27]. The benefits of MPAs for fish species are well documented [26, 28], with studies indicating numerous fish species to be more abundant and larger in size within no-take protected areas than outside [29–32]. MPAs have been successful in conserving stocks of exploited species and provide benefits to fisheries through the ‘spillover effect’ [27, 33] and larval replacement across protected area boundaries [34–36]. However, in order for MPAs to be effective in protecting specific fish species, the movement patterns and home range of these species of interest, must be first determined in order to establish the appropriate size of an MPA and its location [37, 38]. As some species of fish show ontogenetic differences in habitat use and movements [5, 39], an understanding of their behaviours across all life stages is essential. Many recent studies have used acoustic telemetry to understand the movement dynamics of fish within MPAs. For example, luderick (Girella tricuspidata: Family Girellidae) were found to display strong site fidelity on shallow sub-tidal reefs within an MPA in New South Wales, Australia [40]. Similarly, dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus: Family Serranidae) were shown to display strong site fidelity and were regularly detected residing in a MPA for up to five years in the Azores [41, 42]. Small scale MPAs were found appropriate to protect the habitats and small home range of the comber (Serranus cabrilla: Family Serranidae) [43], and also the white sea-bream (Diplodus sargus: Family Sparidae) was observed to increase in abundance and biomass following the recent establishment of a small-sized MPA [44]. Eastern blue groper (Achoerodus viridis: Family Labridae) were shown to have smaller home ranges in no-take MPAs than (...truncated)