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. 2021 Mar 23;11(9):4920-4934.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.7400. eCollection 2021 May.

Regional movements of satellite-tagged whale sharks Rhincodon typus in the Gulf of Aden

Samantha Andrzejaczek  1 , Michel Vély  2 , Daniel Jouannet  2   3 , David Rowat  4 , Sabrina Fossette  2   5
Affiliations

Regional movements of satellite-tagged whale sharks Rhincodon typus in the Gulf of Aden

Samantha Andrzejaczek et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

To gain insight into whale shark (Rhincodon typus) movement patterns in the Western Indian Ocean, we deployed eight pop-up satellite tags at an aggregation site in the Arta Bay region of the Gulf of Tadjoura, Djibouti in the winter months of 2012, 2016, and 2017. Tags revealed movements ranging from local-scale around the Djibouti aggregation site, regional movements along the coastline of Somaliland, movements north into the Red Sea, and a large-scale (>1,000 km) movement to the east coast of Somalia, outside of the Gulf of Aden. Vertical movement data revealed high occupation of the top ten meters of the water column, diel vertical movement patterns, and deep diving behavior. Long-distance movements recorded both here and in previous studies suggest that connectivity between the whale sharks tagged at the Djibouti aggregation and other documented aggregations in the region are likely within annual timeframes. In addition, wide-ranging movements through multiple nations, as well as the high use of surface waters recorded, likely exposes whale sharks in this region to several anthropogenic threats, including targeted and bycatch fisheries and ship-strikes. Area-based management approaches focusing on seasonal hotspots offer a way forward in the conservation of whale sharks in the Western Indian Ocean.

Keywords: Djibouti; biologging; conservation biology; marine megafauna; migration; telemetry.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Movements of six whale sharks Rhincodon typus tagged with satellite tags in Djibouti in 2016 and 2017. Points indicate location recorded by Argos or GPS and are colored by month. Red triangles indicate tag deployment location. Individuals are (a) 157783; (b) 157782; (c) 42856; (d) 165698; (e) 165699 and; (f) 42858. Note that scale varies among maps. Bathymetry data were extracted from the ETOPO1 database using marmap in R. Dotted lines indicate connection between consecutive points
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Daily most probable positions of two whale sharks Rhincodon typus tagged with satellite tags in Djibouti in 2012. Points indicate location recorded at deployment (yellow), by Argos at pop‐up (red), or by light‐based geolocation (other colors indicating month). Note that pop‐up locations are those first recorded by the tag and may not accurately reflect the real pop‐up location from the tagged individual as a result of delayed data transmissions. Individuals are (a) 104072 and (b) 104073
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Time‐at‐depth histograms for six whale sharks Rhincodon typus tagged with pop‐up satellite archival tags in Djibouti in 2012, 2016 and 2017. (a) Time‐at‐depth for all individuals combined. Error bars represent standard deviation. (b) Diel time‐at‐depth for each individual whale shark. Note that bin width varies between the 2012 and 2016 (top four plots) and 2017 (bottom two plots) deployments
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Deployment and pop‐up location(s) from satellite tags deployed on whale sharks Rhincodon typus in Djibouti (this study), Saudi Arabia (Berumen et al., 2014), and the Arabian Gulf (Robinson et al., 2017)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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