Alligator Gars in Texas Coastal Bays: Long-Term Trends and Environmental Influences

Autor: J. Warren Schlechte, Daniel J. Daugherty, Dusty L. McDonald
Rok vydání: 2018
Předmět:
Zdroj: Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 147:653-664
ISSN: 0002-8487
DOI: 10.1002/tafs.10041
Popis: Recognition of the recreational and conservation value of the Alligator Gar Atractosteus spatula has spurred efforts to understand its biology, ecology, and status in river-reservoir systems throughout their range. However, Alligator Gar have also been found in the coastal bays that link these rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. Little is known about the species in saltwater environments, or their potential role in coastal fish communities. To that end, we analyzed 37 years of standardized gill net catches (1975 through 2012) of Alligator Gar in ten Texas bays to characterize spatiotemporal trends in abundance and size structure and identify influential environmental covariates. Over 28,000 Alligator Gar (113–2,040-mm total length) were collected during 24,756 net nights of effort. The species was generally omnipresent both spatially and temporally; however, catch-per-unit-effort varied by two orders of magnitude, and was both cyclic and synchronous among bays. Trends in catch and size structure were co...
Databáze: OpenAIRE