This is especially true for highly migratory sharks, which often traverse regional, national, and international boundaries, thus encountering a broad range of environmental and anthropogenic stressors. Understanding movement patterns and dynamic habitat use for widely ranging species is a significant challenge in the marine environment. įunding: This research was funded by grants from the Texas State Aquarium to GWS and MJA and the Aquarium at Moody Gardens to RJDW.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Users can also access this project interactively through the IOOS ATN portal. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.ĭata Availability: The underlying data is publicly available at DataONE ( ). This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. Received: JanuAccepted: JPublished: July 15, 2020 Patterson, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, AUSTRALIA (2020) Movement patterns and habitat use of tiger sharks ( Galeocerdo cuvier) across ontogeny in the Gulf of Mexico. Future research may benefit from combining alternative tracking tools, such as acoustic telemetry and genetic approaches, which can facilitate long-term assessment of the species’ movement dynamics and better elucidate the ecological significance of the core habitats identified here.Ĭitation: Ajemian MJ, Drymon JM, Hammerschlag N, Wells RJD, Street G, Falterman B, et al. These data provide a baseline for future assessments of environmental impacts, such as climate variability or oil spills, on tiger shark movements and distribution in the region. Additionally, we found evidence of core regions encompassing the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration designated Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (i.e., shelf-edge banks) during cooler months, particularly by females, as well as 2,504 oil and gas platforms. Further, female maximum rate of movement was higher than males when accounting for size. Presumably sub-adult and adult sharks achieved significantly higher movement rates and used off-shelf deeper habitats at greater proportions than juvenile sharks, particularly during the fall and winter seasons. Our analyses revealed significant ontogenetic and seasonal differences in distribution patterns as well as across-shelf (i.e., regional) and sex-linked variability in movement rates. Additionally, we analyzed overlap of core habitats (i.e., 50% kernel density estimates) among individuals relative to large benthic features (oil and gas platforms, natural banks, bathymetric breaks). To address this data gap we fitted 56 tiger sharks with Smart Position and Temperature transmitting tags between 20 and examined seasonal and spatial distribution patterns across the GoM. While all life stages of tiger sharks are known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), variability in habitat use and movement patterns over ontogeny have never been quantified in this large marine ecosystem. The tiger shark ( Galeocerdo cuvier) is globally distributed with established coastal and open-ocean movement patterns in many portions of its range.
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