Abstract

Knowledge of movement ecology, habitat use, and spatiotemporal distribution is critical to inform sustainable fisheries management and conservation. Atlantic halibut in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL) is of great economic value, although little is known about its spatiotemporal distribution, seasonal migrations, and spawning areas. To investigate these aspects, 114 pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) were deployed on halibut from 2013 up to 2018 throughout the GSL. A total of 62 physically recovered PSATs provided complete archived datasets with high temporal resolution. PSAT detachment locations revealed specific summer site fidelity. In contrast, the reconstruction of movement tracks with a geolocation model revealed that all fish converged to the Gulf’s deep channels to overwinter and spawn. This suggests strong mixing during the spawning period and thus one reproductive population within the GSL. These findings illustrate the utility of large-scale PSAT tagging combined with dedicated PSAT-recovery surveys to reveal critical stock-scale information on movements and spawning locations. This information addresses important gaps in the movement ecology of this halibut stock, revealing that reported summer site fidelity, based on years of conventional tagging, also conceals important winter mixing that is only apparent through analyses of movement on the time scale of annual cycles.

中文翻译：

---

对大西洋大比目鱼的股票规模电子跟踪揭示了夏季产地的保真度和常见产卵场的冬季混合情况

摘要

运动生态学，栖息地使用和时空分布的知识对于为可持续渔业管理和保护提供信息至关重要。圣劳伦斯湾（GSL）的大西洋大比目鱼具有巨大的经济价值，尽管对其时空分布，季节性迁徙和产卵区知之甚少。为了研究这些方面，从2013年到2018年，在GSL中，在大比目鱼上部署了114个弹出式卫星档案标签（PSAT）。总共有62个物理恢复的PSAT提供了具有高时间分辨率的完整存档数据集。PSAT分队的位置显示了特定的夏季站点保真度。相反，使用地理位置模型重建运动轨迹表明，所有鱼类都汇聚到海湾的深水沟以越冬和产卵。这表明在产卵期强烈混合，因此在GSL内有一个繁殖种群。这些发现说明了大规模的PSAT标记与专用的PSAT恢复调查相结合的实用程序，可以揭示有关移动和产卵位置的关键库存规模信息。该信息解决了该大比目鱼种群运动生态学方面的重要空白，揭示了基于多年常规标签的报道的夏季地点保真度，也掩盖了重要的冬季混合现象，而这只有通过对年度周期时间尺度上的运动分析才能明显看出。