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Pilot acoustic tracking study on adult spiny lobsters (Palinurus mauritanicus) and spider crabs (Maja squinado) within an artificial reef

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Abstract

Artificial reef areas can be used for management and conservation of commercially exploited crustacean decapods but their behaviour in these environments is poorly characterised. Acoustic tags were used to study the behaviour of 3 adult spiny lobsters (Palinurus mauritanicus) and 3 adult spider crabs (Maja squinado) over a period of 64 days in summer, evaluating the use of artificial reef areas as suitable sites for re-stocking of overfished decapods. For this purpose, animals were released in a western Mediterranean artificial reef located at 20 m depth, close to a cabled seafloor observatory, which simultaneously recorded temperature, salinity, current direction, current speed and light intensity over the study period. Spiny lobsters lingered in the reef area, whereas the spider crabs left the area 21–45 h after release. These behavioural differences suggested that artificial reefs might be a good area to deploy adult lobsters for re-stocking purposes. The movements displayed by the lobsters during this experiment were not influenced by any of the measured environmental factors, whereas spider crab movements occurred against major current direction, when current speed was intense.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the research project: “Redes de sensores submarinos acústicos aplicados al seguimiento de especies de interes comercial” (TRA2009_0294) to AM and to National Sea Harvest Advisory Board (JACUMAR) belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment under the research project: “Propuestas y mejoras para el diseño y control de los planes de repoblación y evaluación del impacto de los escapes—REPES” to GR. The authors would like to thank Glòria Macià and Esteban Hernández for their support as laboratory technicians at IRTA, Sant Carles de la Ràpita, and the “Servei Meteorologic de Catalunya” for providing data from their automatic meteorological station. Jacopo Aguzzi is a fellow within the Ramón y Cajal Program (MICINN).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Guiomar Rotllant, Jacopo Aguzzi, Valerio Sbragaglia & Francisco Sardà

  2. Electronics Department, Technological Development Centre for Remote Acquisition and Data Processing Systems (SARTI), Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC), Rambla de l’Exposició 24, 08800, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Barcelona, Spain

    David Sarria, Joaquín Del Río, Carles G. Simeó, Antoni Mànuel & Erik Molino

  3. Unitat Operativa de Cultius Experimentals, IRTA, Carretera del Poblenou km 5.5, Sant Carles de la Ràpita, 43540, Tarragona, Spain

    Enric Gisbert & Carles G. Simeó

  4. Unità di ricerca per l’ingegneria agraria, Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Via della Pascolare 16, 00015, Monterotondo Scalo, Rome, Italy

    Corrado Costa

  5. Associated Unit, Tecnoterra, Lisbon, Portugal

    Jacopo Aguzzi, David Sarria, Valerio Sbragaglia, Joaquín Del Río, Antoni Mànuel, Erik Molino & Francisco Sardà

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  1. Guiomar Rotllant
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  2. Jacopo Aguzzi
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  3. David Sarria
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  9. Erik Molino
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  10. Corrado Costa
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  11. Francisco Sardà
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Correspondence to Guiomar Rotllant.

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Rotllant, G., Aguzzi, J., Sarria, D. et al. Pilot acoustic tracking study on adult spiny lobsters (Palinurus mauritanicus) and spider crabs (Maja squinado) within an artificial reef. Hydrobiologia 742, 27–38 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-1959-5

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