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Assessing the suitability of mangrove habitats for juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper

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Abstract

While juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822), are known to depend on mangrove root structure, relationships with water properties (e.g., salinity) and depth remain unclear or understudied. Because availability of suitable mangrove habitat has been suggested as the primary bottleneck to the recovery of this threatened species in the US, we investigated habitat associations of juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper with respect to physical water properties within mangrove habitats. Our study was conducted in six coastal rivers and three canals within the Ten Thousand Islands region of southwest Florida. Results suggested that juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper differed in how they associated with specific mangrove habitats based on season and size. We found that smaller juveniles (<340 mm TL) appeared to have stronger associations to physical water characteristics than larger (≥340 mm TL) juveniles. Both large and small juveniles showed the strongest associations with DO (i.e., >3 mg L−1) within mangrove habitat. For small juveniles, extreme temperatures influenced habitat association; for large juveniles, extreme salinity influenced distribution. We also found evidence that juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper associated more with natural rivers over man-made canals. The present study has utility for delineating suitable mangrove habitats for protection and potentially in the design of sampling surveys that aim to estimate population abundance.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center. We thank A Shideler for assistance with data processing and analysis and A-M Eklund, C Koenig, and F Coleman for initiating the juvenile goliath grouper sampling described here, and thanks to M Finn for doing the lionshare of the work on deploying and recovering traps. This research was conducted under the guidelines of the Florida State University Animal Care and Use Committee and under permits from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, FL, 33149, USA

    Geoffrey S. Shideler & Joseph E. Serafy

  2. Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, University of Miami, Miami, FL, 33149, USA

    Skyler R. Sagarese & William J. Harford

  3. Southeast Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Miami, FL, 33149, USA

    Jennifer Schull & Joseph E. Serafy

Authors
  1. Geoffrey S. Shideler
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  2. Skyler R. Sagarese
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  3. William J. Harford
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  4. Jennifer Schull
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  5. Joseph E. Serafy
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Correspondence to Geoffrey S. Shideler.

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Shideler, G.S., Sagarese, S.R., Harford, W.J. et al. Assessing the suitability of mangrove habitats for juvenile Atlantic goliath grouper. Environ Biol Fish 98, 2067–2082 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-015-0430-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-015-0430-4

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