Fishery-independent observations of Atlantic menhaden abundance in the coastal waters south of New York

Lucca, Brandyn M.; Warren, Joseph D.

doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2019.05.016

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The overwhelming dominance of Atlantic menhaden in the metabarcoding results across most samples is consistent with the large biomass of this species in summer and fall months in the NYB (Lucca and Warren, 2019), and may be linked to the increasing number of observations of humpback whales in this region (Brown et al, 2018;King et al, 2021). We directly observed Atlantic menhaden in at least seven of our cetacean sightings, in line with findings by Brown et al (2018) who observed menhaden in ∼20% of humpback whale sightings in New York waters, and King et al (2021) who observed menhaden as the primary prey type in nearly two-thirds of foraging encounters in nearshore waters of the NYB.…”

Section: Fish Diversity and Mixed-species Aggregationssupporting

confidence: 76%

Using Environmental DNA to Detect Whales and Dolphins in the New York Bight

Alter

King

Chou

et al. 2022

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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Determining how cetaceans and other threatened marine animals use coastal habitats is critical to the effective conservation of these species. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging tool that can potentially be used to detect cetaceans over broad spatial and temporal scales. In particular, eDNA may present a useful complementary method for monitoring their presence during visual surveys in nearshore areas, and for co-detecting prey. In conjunction with ongoing visual surveys, we tested the ability of eDNA metabarcoding to detect the presence and identity of cetaceans in the New York Bight (NYB), and to identify fish species (potential prey) present in the area. In almost all cases in which humpback whales and dolphins were visually observed, DNA from these species was also detected in water samples. To assess eDNA degradation over time, we took samples in the same location 15 and 30 min after a sighting in seven instances, and found that eDNA often, but not always, dropped to low levels after 30 min. Atlantic menhaden were detected in all samples and comprised the majority of fish sequences in most samples, in agreement with observations of large aggregations of this important prey species in the NYB. While additional data are needed to better understand how factors such as behavior and oceanographic conditions contribute to the longevity of eDNA signals, these results add to a growing body of work indicating that eDNA is a promising tool to complement visual and acoustic surveys of marine megafauna.

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Section: Fish Diversity and Mixed-species Aggregationssupporting

confidence: 76%

Using Environmental DNA to Detect Whales and Dolphins in the New York Bight

Alter

King

Chou

et al. 2022

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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“…Aschettino et al (2020) also found that increasing numbers of humpback whales wintering off coastal Virginia appeared to be feeding on Atlantic menhaden. Lucca & Warren (2019) detected large schools of Atlantic menhaden in the NYBA during the summers of 2014-2015, and the most recent Atlantic menhaden stock assessment found that the rate of fishing mortality has been below the single species target since the 1990s (SEDAR, 2020). Therefore, increased or more consistent availability of this prey species may be driving the increase in sightings of humpback whales in the NYBA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Site fidelity, population identity and demographic characteristics of humpback whales in the New York Bight apex

Brown

Robbins²,

Sieswerda³

et al. 2022

J. Mar. Biol. Ass.

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Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) exhibit maternally driven fidelity to feeding grounds, and yet occasionally occupy new areas. Humpback whale sightings and mortalities in the New York Bight apex (NYBA) have been increasing over the last decade, providing an opportunity to study this phenomenon in an urban habitat. Whales in this area overlap with human activities, including busy shipping traffic leading into the Port of New York and New Jersey. The site fidelity, population composition and demographics of individual whales were analysed to better inform management in this high-risk area. Whale watching and other opportunistic data collections were used to identify 101 individual humpback whales in the NYBA from spring through autumn, 2012–2018. Although mean occurrence was low (2.5 days), mean occupancy was 37.6 days, and 31.3% of whales returned from one year to the next. Individuals compared with other regional and ocean-basin-wide photo-identification catalogues (N = 52) were primarily resighted at other sites along the US East Coast, including the Gulf of Maine feeding ground. Sightings of mother-calf pairs were rare in the NYBA, suggesting that maternally directed fidelity may not be responsible for the presence of young whales in this area. Other factors including shifts in prey species distribution or changes in population structure more broadly should be investigated.

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“…Large‐scale active acoustic surveys are widely used for conducting abundance (i.e., biomass) surveys of forage fishes (Jech & McQuinn, 2016 ; McQuinn, 2009 ). Yet, acoustic surveys for assessing FFA characteristics specifically, including horizontal and vertical distribution, school density, and predator–prey interactions (Lucca & Warren, 2019 ; Thayne et al, 2019 ) are often conducted at small spatial scopes, and seascape‐level patterns in the distributions of FFAs are largely unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface and subsurface oceanographic features drive forage fish distributions and aggregations: Implications for prey availability to top predators in the US Northeast Shelf ecosystem

Goetsch

Gulka

Friedland

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Forage fishes are a critical food web link in marine ecosystems, aggregating in a hierarchical patch structure over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Surface-level forage fish aggregations (FFAs) represent a concentrated source of prey available to surface-and shallow-foraging marine predators. Existing survey and analysis methods are often imperfect for studying forage fishes at scales appropriate to foraging predators, making it difficult to quantify predator-prey interactions. In many cases, general distributions of forage fish species are known; however, these may not represent surface-level prey availability to predators. Likewise, we lack an understanding of the oceanographic drivers of spatial patterns of prey aggregation and availability or forage fish community patterns. Specifically, we applied Bayesian joint species distribution models to bottom trawl survey data to assess species-and community-level forage fish distribution patterns across the US Northeast Continental Shelf (NES) ecosystem.Aerial digital surveys gathered data on surface FFAs at two project sites within the NES, which we used in a spatially explicit hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate the abundance and size of surface FFAs. We used these models to examine the oceanographic drivers of forage fish distributions and aggregations. Our results suggest that, in the NES, regions of high community species richness are spatially consistent with regions of high surface FFA abundance. Bathymetric depth drove both patterns, while subsurface features, such as mixed layer depth, primarily influenced aggregation behavior and surface features, such as sea surface temperature, sub-mesoscale eddies, and fronts influenced forage fish diversity. In combination, these models help quantify the availability of forage fishes to marine predators and represent a novel application of spatial models to aerial digital survey data.

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Fishery-independent observations of Atlantic menhaden abundance in the coastal waters south of New York

Cited by 10 publications

References 29 publications

Using Environmental DNA to Detect Whales and Dolphins in the New York Bight

Using Environmental DNA to Detect Whales and Dolphins in the New York Bight

Site fidelity, population identity and demographic characteristics of humpback whales in the New York Bight apex

Surface and subsurface oceanographic features drive forage fish distributions and aggregations: Implications for prey availability to top predators in the US Northeast Shelf ecosystem

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