MEPS 539:255-269 (2015)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11482

ABSTRACT: Barred sand bass Paralabrax nebulifer (Family: Serranidae; BSB) are among the most popular recreational game fishes in southern California and an important food fish. Patterns of residency and habitat use are critical for determining the potential for BSB to be impacted by point source anthropogenic contaminants prevalent in the densely populated coastal environment near Los Angeles, California. Home ranging behavior, degree of site fidelity, residency, habitat selection, and seasonal spawning migration of BSB were observed over 27 mo using a large, continuous coverage, fine-scale acoustic telemetry array (~20 km²). The 55 tagged individuals used small core areas (mean ± SD = 2682 ± 2005 m² over 329 ± 227 d) and showed high affinity for the rock/sand ecotone at a depth of 20 to 30 m. Overall weekly residency to the array was 70 ± 25% of tagged fish present from the first tag date through the end of the study, with lower residency during the summer spawning season (June to August). Individuals leaving the array emigrated in a southeasterly direction 98% of the time, and 100% of the BSB detections outside the array occurred to the southeast of the Palos Verdes Shelf Superfund Site (PVSSS; 26.4 ± 0.8 km). BSB of legal size (>360 mm TL) exhibit high long-term site fidelity to small areas within the PVSSS and make seasonal migrations to spawning aggregations beyond the boundaries of the ‘do not consume’ zone defined by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in 2009.

KEY WORDS: Barred sand bass · Paralabrax · Serranidae · Home range · Site fidelity · Spawning migration · Palos Verdes · Superfund · DDT · Acoustic telemetry · VPS