Clouse, Kimberly A.

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Use of passive acoustic recordings to quantify abundance relationship from courtship associated sounds of the Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) at spawning aggregation sites in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands
(2015) Clouse, Kimberly A.; Appeldoorn, Richard S.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Schizas, Nikolaos; Ojeda, Edgardo; Otero, Ernesto; Department of Marine Sciences; Ramírez Durand, Lillian
The Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus, has been overfished to commercial extinction, such that many aggregations have diminished or disappeared throughout the Caribbean. Groupers produce sound, and the objective of this research was to quantify the relationship between their courtship associated sounds (CAS) to relative abundance at two spawning aggregations. Passive acoustic monitoring was conducted at Bajo de Sico, Puerto Rico (BDS) and the Grammanik Bank, USVI (GB) for 6 months during the 2013 spawning season. CAS were compared to abundance counts obtained from underwater visual census (UVC) to assess the relationship between sound and abundance at both sites. From linear regression, statistically positive correlations (0.81, 0.75; and R2 =0.56, 0.652) for BDS-Deep and BDS-Shallow, respectively were recorded, while the relationship at GB (0.58, R2=0.334) was more variable, however significant. Variability of site geomorphology, hydrophone placement relative to fish aggregating and fish calling behaviors may explain some variability in this relationship.