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Movement behaviour of released wild and farm-raised dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus tracked by pop-up satellite archival tags

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Abstract

To gauge the effectiveness of supplementing native populations of dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus, we compared farm-raised and wild fish in terms of their horizontal and vertical movement patterns, habitat preferences and thermal niche using pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) deployed in two disparate locations: the sub-tropical southeastern coast of Taiwan (wild, n = 4), and temperate Kagoshima Bay, Japan (farm-raised, n = 3). Tagged fish were tracked for periods of 7–40 days, reached depths > 100 m, and experienced temperatures of 15–30 °C in Taiwan, and 20–23 °C in Kagoshima Bay. Fish tagged in Taiwan made primarily northward movements during early summer but changed to a southward course in early winter. In Kagoshima Bay, tagged fish undertook southward excursions along the coast and movements were confined to the bay. Dolphinfish spent > 50% of their time near the surface and made more extensive vertical movements during the night than during the day; vertical movements were largely confined to the mixed layer. Depth distributions appeared to be limited by a Δ6 °C change in temperature relative to sea surface temperature (i.e., > 90% of movements were within 6 °C of the warmest water available).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Captain T. L. Lee of the Chang-Ue no. 1 longline fishing vessel for his skill in catching dolphinfish. In addition, we thank the following for field assistance: G. L. He, F. Y. Tsai, C. H. Chang, H. H. Hsu, C. T. Chang, Y. S. Ho and Kagoshima City Aquarium M. Nishino. This study was partially financially supported by the Fisheries Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Taiwan [grant nos. 104AS-11.2.1-A1(2), 105AS-11.2.2-A1, 106AS-10.2.2-A1(5)] and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI [grant no. 16H05795 (R. K.)].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Biology and Fishery Science, National Taiwan Ocean University, 2 Beining Road, Jhongjheng District, Keelung, 202, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Shian-Jhong Lin, Sheng-Ping Wang, Nan-Jay Su, Ching-Ping Lu & Chang-Ying Wu

  2. Eastern Marine Biology Research Center, Fisheries Research Institute, 22 Wuchuan Road, Taitung, Chenggong, 961, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Shian-Jhong Lin & Wei-Chuan Chiang

  3. Pelagic Research Group, Honolulu, USA

    Michael K. Musyl

  4. Graduate School of Fisheries and Environmental Science, Nagasaki University, 1-14 Bunkyo-Machi, Nagasaki, 852-8521, Japan

    Kazuki Tone & Itsumi Nakamura

  5. Kagoshima City Aquarium, 3-1 Honkoshinmachi, Kagoshima, Japan

    Akira Sasaki

  6. Division of Marine Bioresource and Environmental Science, Fisheries Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 8, Nishi 5, Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0808, Japan

    Kazuyoshi Komeyama

  7. Institute for East China Sea Research, Organization for Marine Science and Technology, Nagasaki University, 1551-7 Taira-Machi, Nagasaki, 851-2213, Japan

    Ryo Kawabe

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  1. Shian-Jhong Lin
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Correspondence to Wei-Chuan Chiang.

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Lin, SJ., Musyl, M.K., Wang, SP. et al. Movement behaviour of released wild and farm-raised dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus tracked by pop-up satellite archival tags. Fish Sci 85, 779–790 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-019-01334-y

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