Stingray Habitat Use Is Dynamically Influenced by Temperature and Tides
Authors
Elston, Chantel
Cowley, Paul D
von Brandis, Rainer G
Lea, James
Publication Date
2022-01-13Journal Title
Frontiers in Marine Science
ISSN
2296-7745
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Volume
8
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Elston, C., Cowley, P. D., von Brandis, R. G., & Lea, J. (2022). Stingray Habitat Use Is Dynamically Influenced by Temperature and Tides. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8 https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.754404
Abstract
<jats:p>Abiotic factors often have a large influence on the habitat use of animals in shallow marine environments. Specifically, tides may alter the physical and biological characteristics of an ecosystem while changes in temperature can cause ectothermic species to behaviorally thermoregulate. Understanding the contextual and relative influences of these abiotic factors is important in prioritizing management plans, particularly for vulnerable faunal groups like stingrays. Passive acoustic telemetry was used to track the movements of 60 stingrays at a remote and environmentally heterogeneous atoll in Seychelles. This was to determine if habitat use varied over daily, diel and tidal cycles and to investigate the environmental drivers behind these potential temporal patterns. Individuals were detected in the atoll year-round, but the extent of their movement and use of multiple habitats increased in the warmer NW-monsoon season. Habitat use varied over the diel cycle, but was inconsistent between individuals. Temperature was also found to influence stingray movements, with individuals preferring the deeper and more thermally stable lagoon habitat when extreme (hot or cold) temperature events were observed on the flats. Habitat use also varied over the tidal cycle with stingrays spending a higher proportion of time in the lagoon during the lowest tides, when movement on the flats were constrained due to shallow waters. The interplay of tides and temperature, and how these varied across diel and daily scales, dynamically influenced stingray habitat use consistently between three species in an offshore atoll.</jats:p>
Keywords
Marine Science, acoustic telemetry, spatial ecology, GLMM, St Joseph Atoll, Dasyatidae
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.754404
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333366
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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