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Not so sluggish: movement and sediment turnover of the world’s heaviest holothuroid, Thelenota anax

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Abstract

Ecology of many sea cucumbers, including the world’s heaviest holothuroid Thelenota anax, remains understudied, hindering effective fisheries management and conservation. We located, measured and weighed 38 T. anax over 10 days at Lizard Island, northeast Australia. Body length alone was a suitable predictor of body weight for this species. Short-term (1–4 h) rates of displacement and sediment defecation were measured on 30 animals across three sites. The animals were highly mobile, moving, on average, 57 cm h−1 (± 11 SE), and reworking 34 g dry weight of sediment h−1 (± 7 SE). The animals moved more and defecated more sediments in areas where surrounding sediments had lower levels of organic matter. Defecation rates increased through daytime hours. The high mobility of T. anax should confer an advantage for mate-finding but also could increase spillover from small marine reserves into fishing grounds. Our findings galvanise a pattern of high mobility in larger holothuroids and show that food resources and time of day modulate the extent of sediment reworking by deposit feeding holothuroids. The high sediment turnover rate highlights the detrimental effect that overfishing of these large holothuroids will have on the health of coastal marine ecosystems.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Lizard Island Research Station managers and caretakes, and National Marine Science Centre staff for facilitating the field and laboratory work. Thanks also to A. Bowling for her advice on statistical analyses. We thank S. Uthicke and one anonymous reviewer for their constructive suggestions on the manuscript. This research was financially supported by the Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University, and conducted under Lizard Island Research Station collection permit GBRMPA G14/36625.1. For the purpose of verifying the validity of the results presented, the raw data and photographs are available from the authors upon request.

Funding

This study was funded through an internal grant by the Marine Ecology Research Centre of Southern Cross University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, Charlesworth Bay, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia

    Alison R. Hammond, Luka Meyers & Steven W. Purcell

  2. Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University, Military Road, East Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia

    Steven W. Purcell

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  1. Alison R. Hammond
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Correspondence to Steven W. Purcell.

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ARH declares that she has no conflict of interest. LM declares that she has no conflict of interest. SWP declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. Within Australia, animal ethics permits are not required for research on echinoderms. Nonetheless, we held the animals out of water for only 6 min for weighing them, and returned them back to the habitats at the same sites thereafter.

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Hammond, A.R., Meyers, L. & Purcell, S.W. Not so sluggish: movement and sediment turnover of the world’s heaviest holothuroid, Thelenota anax. Mar Biol 167, 60 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-3671-5

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