The power of national acoustic tracking networks to assess the impacts of human activity on marine organisms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

COVID-19 restrictions have led to an unprecedented global hiatus in anthropogenic activities, providing a unique opportunity to assess human impact on biological systems. Here, we describe how a national network of acoustic tracking receivers can be leveraged to assess the effects of human activity on animal movement and space use during such global disruptions. We outline variation in restrictions on human activity across Australian states and describe four mechanisms affecting human interactions with the marine environment: 1) reduction in economy and trade changing shipping traffic; 2) changes in export markets affecting commercial fisheries; 3) alterations in recreational activities; and 4) decline in tourism. We develop a roadmap for the analysis of acoustic tracking data across various scales using Australia's national Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tracking Facility as a case study. We illustrate the benefit of sustained observing systems and monitoring programs by assessing how a 51-day break in white shark ( Carcharodon carcharias) cage-diving tourism due to COVID-19 restrictions affected the behaviour and space use of two resident species. This cessation of tourism activities represents the longest break since cage-diving vessels started day trips in this area in 2007. Long-term monitoring of the local environment reveals that the activity space of yellowtail kingfish ( Seriola lalandi ) was reduced when cage-diving boats were absent compared to periods following standard tourism operations. However, white shark residency and movements were not affected. Our roadmap is globally applicable and will assist researchers in designing studies to assess how anthropogenic activities can impact animal movement and distributions during regional, short-term through to major, unexpected disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continental-Scale Network Reveals Cross-Jurisdictional Movements of Sympatric Sharks With Implications for Assessment and Management

“…All IMOS data and the voluntarily supplied detections from non-IMOS receivers are hosted by and publicly accessible through the Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN) and the IMOS Animal Tracking database (Hoenner et al, 2018) 1 . These data enable large-scale studies of animal movements (Heupel et al, 2015), the ability to reveal intra-specific differences in movement profiles and site residency of a wide range of species (Brodie et al, 2018), and to determine how changes in human activity impact animal populations during global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Huveneers et al, 2021). The IMOS Animal Tracking Facility provides an opportunity to quantify the extent of movement and connectivity of marine species and determine the most suitable spatial scale for stock assessments and management purposes (Lédée et al, 2021).…”

Indirect Impacts of COVID-19 on a Tropical Lobster Fishery’s Harvest Strategy and Supply Chain

“…This was also the case for all other major Australian lobster fisheries, live fish exports such as coral trout and shellfish such as abalone, all of which are subject to Australia's strict export laws. In response to the inability to freight produce overseas, short-term declines in catches were observed for some fisheries (Huveneers et al, 2021).…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic (Hui et al, 2020) has indirectly led to severe economic impacts on global and Australian seafood industries (Bennett et al, 2020). This has included disruptions in shipping activity (Huveneers et al, 2021;Notteboom et al, 2021), global markets (Knight et al, 2020), food security (Steenbergen et al, 2020) and negatively impacted on commercial fisher's health and wellbeing as well as added to the challenges of protecting workers on fishing vessels (Sorensen et al, 2020). A recent review highlighted widespread heterogenous ramifications on United States fisheries (White et al, 2021).…”

“…Link et al (2021) reported that the United States alone had to cancel over 50 fisheries surveys resulting in a loss of over 1,500 onthe-water days-at-sea. Although Australia was also impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, localized outbreaks were contained relatively quickly, resulting in only a brief core "lockdown" (Huveneers et al, 2021) and hence activities such as fishing and surveys were impacted less than was the case for many other countries.…”

“…and live eel (Catizone, 2020). As a result, there were short-term declines in catches around Australia of these species (Huveneers et al, 2021). Even before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a worldwide public emergency, the global market for spiny lobsters, valued at United States $912 million in China alone, was halted because 90% of these high value lobsters are exported to China (Knight et al, 2020).…”