BEHAVIOR OF HATCHERY PRODUCED WHITE SEABREAMS (Diplodus sargus, SPARIDAE, PERCIFORMES) RELEASED ON ARTIFICIAL REEFS OFF THE SOUTH

COAST OF THE ALGARVE (SOUTHERN PORTUGAL)

Pedro Gil Lino (1)*, Lus Bentes (2), David Abecasis (2),Miguel Neves dos Santos (1) and Karim Erzini (2)
(1) INRB / IPIMAR, Av. 5 de Outubro S/N, 8700-305 Olho, Portugal (2) Centro de Cincias do Mar (CCMAR), Universidade do Algarve, Faculdade de Cincias do Mar e Ambiente, Campus de Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal * Corresponding author: plino@cripsul.ipimar.pt

Introduction
Diplodus sargus, the white seabream, is a high commercial value species, whose catches have been declining since the late 1980s. Since 2000, IPIMAR has been carrying out restocking trials with hatchery fish produced at the IPIMAR Aquaculture facilities (EPPO) in Olho. Previous studies based on conventional tagging (T-bar anchor tags) together with under water surveys showed that reared specimens do not remain near the artificial reefs for long periods. This results have been confirmed by a previous experimental trial with V8 acoustic tags. The aim of this study was to register the movements of the 5 hatchery reared fish when released at 20m depth on the Faro/Anco artificial reef (AR), which are located near a natural reef. A second objective aimed at comparing behavior of fish acclimated and fish immediately released.

Figure 1. Hatchery reared Diplodus sargus returning to release cage.

Material and methods

Juveniles of Diplodus sargus (Figure 1) hatched and reared at the IPIMAR's Fish Production Unit were double tagged with a Vemco V8SC acoustic transmitter, surgically implanted in the abdominal cavity, and a Floytag FD-94 T-bar anchor tag under the dorsal fin. An array of 13 VEMCO brand VR2 acoustic receivers (Figure 2) was set on the AR deployed off the south coast of the Algarve (southern Portugal). Fish where released at 20m depth on the AR, which are located near a natural reef. From the 9 fish tagged, 5 were held in a holding pen for two days prior to release (Table 1).

Results
At release, hatchery produced fish showed no interest in abandoning the cage (Figure 1). Fish 164, which was immediately released, showed the behaviour observed in a previous experiment, moving around release site for an hour and then moving towards the coast. Fish 162 and 163, moved inside the study area, with no spatial or temporal pattern for 2 to 4 weeks, leaving the study area thereafter. Fish 159 stayed near release location for a day and was not detected until 23days later. The specimen remained in the study area for another 7 days and was no longer detected. Fish 156, 157, 158 and 161 were held in the cage for 2 days but did not survive to be released. Fish 160 was the only specimen that survived the 2 days acclimation and remained most of the time near release location, with some initial movements to SE and coastward (NE) but was the only fish to remain on site until the end of the study.

Discussion
Hatchery fish immediately released under the current conditions showed no clear movement pattern. In fact, three different behaviours were observed: a) leaving almost immediately towards the coastline, b) leaving but returning after 3 weeks; c) remaining in the area 2-4 weeks and leaving thereafter. On the other hand, the fish acclimated remained in the area during the entire study period. Fish conditioning to location apparently increased probability to remain in the area. However acclimation procedures need to be improved in order to guarantee survivorship.
R eleas ed

Figure 2. Minimum Convex Polygon for fish 159

Table 1. Characteristics of the released fish

ID
 

T L (c m)


F L (c m)
  

T W(g )
   

S urg ery
  

C ag ed

        

This study was supported by the project PROMOPESCA, within the frame work of INTERREG IIIA programme Pedro G. Lino holds a PhD grant supported by the Fundao para a Cincia e Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/19308/2004)

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