Abstract
We developed a long-term tagging method that can be used to understand species assemblages and social groupings associated with large marine fishes such as the Sand Tiger shark Carcharias taurus. We deployed internally implanted archival VEMCO Mobile Transceivers (VMTs; VEMCO Ltd. Nova Scotia, Canada) in 20 adult Sand Tigers, of which two tags were successfully recovered (10%). The recovered VMTs recorded 29,646 and 44,210 detections of telemetered animals respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a method for long-term (~ 1 year) archival acoustic transceiver tag implantation, retention, and recovery in a highly migratory marine fish. Results show low presumed mortality (n = 1, 5%), high VMT retention, and that non-lethal recovery after almost a year at liberty can be achieved for archival acoustic transceivers. This method can be applied to study the social interactions and behavioral ecology of large marine fishes.
Highlights
Acoustic telemetry is commonly used to study the movements, migrations, habitat associations, and more recently survival of marine fishes [1,2,3,4]
An additional 6 Sand Tigers carrying VEMCO Mobile Transceivers (VMTs) were detected by acoustic receivers that were part of the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry (ACT) Network at some point throughout the following year
It does not appear that the behavior of the Sand Tigers was affected by the presence of the internally attached VMT
Summary
Acoustic telemetry is commonly used to study the movements, migrations, habitat associations, and more recently survival of marine fishes [1,2,3,4]. Measuring social structure and networks of aquatic species is problematic because behavioral observations can be difficult to obtain in the ocean. Researchers have attempted to observe these social groups using photo identification [6,7], visual observations [8], mark and recapture [9], and standard acoustic telemetry (active tracking: [10], passive tracking: [11]). An alternative method of observing social structure in marine animals is to use archival tags that record detections of nearby telemetered animals. The miniaturization of acoustic receivers makes it possible for researchers to use marine animals as bio-loggers or mobile telemetry assets [5,12]. Most archival telemetry receivers must be recovered to retrieve the acoustic detection information. Pinnipeds have proven to be useful mobile telemetry assets
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