Site Fidelity and Migrations of Florida Surf Zone Fishes: Does High Mobility Limit Impacts of Beach Renourishment?

Surf zone habitats in the US South Atlantic support several economically valuable fishery species. Beach renourishments may affect surf-associated fishes by altering shoreline complexity and degrading invertebrate communities, although the degree of disruption may be proportional to a species natural mobility. We used passive acoustic telemetry to quantify movements of red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), pompano (Trachinotus carolinus), kingcroaker (Menticirrhus littoralis), and lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) in the surf zone at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Ninety-one total individuals were implanted with acoustic tags and tracked via the 300 km long Florida Atlantic Coast Telemetry (FACT) Array. Species utilized an average of 13 km (kingcroaker) to 192 km (lemon sharks) of coastline, with maximum observed dispersal exceeding >85 km for all taxa. While most common near the beach, all species were also detected >10 km from shore. Lemon sharks demonstrated the longest seasonal migrations but also showed exceptionally strong seasonal site fidelity, returning to the same longshore troughs for up to five consecutive winters. These results suggest that small-scale renourishment events may not be overly disruptive to large-bodied surf fishes at the individual level, but that certain sections of coastline may hold disproportionate value, even for widely distributed species.