Low recruitment drives the decline of red porgy (Pagrus pagrus) along the southeast USA Atlantic coast: Inferences from fishery-independent trap and video monitoring.

ABSTRACT: Red porgy (Pagrus pagrus) is a reef-associated, economically-important, winter-spawning, protogynous Sparidae species that appears to have declined in abundance in recent years along the southeast United States Atlantic coast. We used spatially-explicit generalized additive models built with fishery-independent chevron trap (1990-2021) and video data (2011-2021) to quantify the ways in which red porgy relative abundance and mean size varied across temporal, spatial, environmental, and habitat variables. Mean red porgy relative abundance from traps declined by 77% between 1992 and 2021, and declines were similarly large (69%) on video between 2011 and 2021. The largest two-year decline in relative abundance occurred early in the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-2021)- 32% in traps and 45% on video-d

SUBMITTER: Bacheler NM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10321639 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature