Abstract
Effective conservation must account for fish migrations to minimize threats to freshwater fishes. Many floodplain fishes, like giant Neotropical arapaima (genus Arapaima), migrate laterally into seasonally flooded habitats to feed and reproduce. Effects of seasonal migrations on conservation efforts like community-based management remain uncertain. Acoustic telemetry was applied to arapaima in floodplain habitats (Lower Amazon) to characterize (1) lake fidelity, (2) lake population connectivity, and (3) migrations beyond managed units. During low water of 2014, 24 arapaima were captured and implanted with acoustic tags in three lakes within a 10-km diameter and across two fishing communities. During floods, the entire study area was connected, including tagging lakes. Monitoring was continuous over two annual flood cycles using an array of 19 fixed acoustic receivers in four lakes. Additional nearby lakes were surveyed with portable receivers for unaccounted individuals during subsequent dry seasons. On average, 74% of unharvested arapaima returned to the same lake; no arapaima were found outside their lake of tagging origin during subsequent dry seasons. During high water, arapaima migrations were not contained within community management units; three arapaima were found outside their community zone. Overlapping distributions of arapaima from each of three lake populations showed connectivity during flooding, especially near known spawning grounds. Results demonstrate that management by local fishers to regulate fishing within lakes can work because arapaima show fidelity to their lake of tagging origin. Current management efforts could be improved by delineating management units to networks of habitats that sustain arapaima over complete life histories.
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adapted from Castello et al. 2015; produced in ArcGIS v.10.3). Acoustic telemetry was used to monitor the movement of arapaima within the highlighted study area (see enlarged in Fig. 2). b Annual water level cycle with 95% confidence intervals for high and low levels based on two decades of monitoring at a station 100 km upstream of Santarém (data from: www.snirh.gov.br/hidroweb/, 1990–2010, Curuai station, -2.2725 S, -55.4808 W)
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Innovasea, formally (and at the time of this fieldwork) known as Vemco, for their generous loan of half the receivers used in this study. This work could not have been accomplished without help from the following institutions: Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (UFOPA), Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, and SAPOPEMA. We would like to thank David McGrath, Fábio Sarmento de Sousa, Lenise Flôres Vargas da Silva, Luis Reginaldo Ribeiro Rodrigues, and various students from UFOPA for their invaluable contributions during project preparation and execution. We would also like to thank Leandro Castello and Eduardo Martins for sharing their experiences with arapaima telemetry during similar field. We appreciate the comments and feedback of those who reviewed drafts of this manuscript, Leandro Castello, Karin E. Limburg, and Camille Rodriguez Gurdak. Last, but not least, we would like to thank the peoples of the fishing communities in our study area who shared their knowledge of arapaima, granted access to their lakes, and greatly facilitated this work. The individuals and organizations mentioned here have not officially endorsed this publication and the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors.
Funding
This research was funded in part by: National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration (APK; Grant #9368–13; www.nationalgeographic.org), the US Institute for International Education Fulbright Scholar Program (DJG; us.fulbrightonline.org), the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowship Program (DJG; #F13F11123; https://www.epa.gov/careers/fellowships-scholarships-and-post-doctoral-opportunities), Society of Wetland Scientists Student Research Award (DJG; www.sws.org), Scientific Research Crowdfunding Campaign through “Petridish.org” (DJG), and various funding sources from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (DJG) (i.e., Graduate Assistantships in Department of Environmental Biology, the Robert L. Burgess Graduate Scholarship in Ecology, the Wilford Dence Fellowship, the Tropical Social Forestry Fund, and the Maurice and Annette Alexander Wetlands Research Award). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The organizations mentioned here have not officially endorsed this publication, and the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design, including material preparation and data collection and analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Daniel J. Gurdak with supervision from Donald J. Stewart and A. Pete Klimley; all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This study was conducted under authorization granted by the Brazilian National Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação; CNPQ #s: 001141/ 2012–0 and 001609/ 2014–9) and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis: SISBIO #s: 30201 and 45187). This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations set forth by the Animal Welfare Act and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at SUNY ESF (protocol #: 121001) and Comissão de Ética no Uso de Animais (CEUA- Ethics Committee on Animal Use) at UFOPA (protocol #: 08010/ 2014).
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Appendix 1
Appendix 1
Denoted by a dashed line, neighboring lakes <1-m depth and without fixed receiver stations that were surveyed for tagged arapaima using a portable receiving unit
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Gurdak, D.J., Stewart, D.J., Klimley, A.P. et al. Local fisheries conservation and management works: implications of migrations and site fidelity of Arapaima in the Lower Amazon. Environ Biol Fish 105, 2119–2132 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-021-01171-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-021-01171-y