Abstract

Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) supports major fisheries throughout the Caribbean, especially in The Bahamas, which reports the highest catches and where lobster serves as the number one food export. Panulirus ar-gus possesses a long pelagic larval duration (PLD), estimated at 5 - 7 months. The possibility for long-range dispersal increases the difficulty when determining origins of local adult populations. Additionally, larval behavior can constrain dispersal, complicating the dispersal scenario and its implications for conservation and management. We used a coupled biophysical model to explore policy implications of lobster larval dispersal in The Bahamas by simulating dispersal from scaled egg production of 47 Bahamian release locations to determine the mean dispersal kernel and identify hotspots of settlement. The model, initialized biweekly from April through September (the highest months of larvae production in The Bahamas) simulated lobster larval dispersal using a maximum PLD of 180 days, and included diel and ontogenetic changes in vertical migration that influence transport. The dispersal kernel in The Bahamas was 100 - 300 km, indicating that larvae released within its boundaries typically settled there as well. Due to the long PLD, larval particles travelled 4,000 km or more from source locations; those same larval particles still settled within The Bahamas, suggesting local retention – a finding that contradicts the common perception that lobster in The Bahamas originate elsewhere. This new knowledge has important ramifications for the conservation and management of the Bahamian P. argus fishery, including the implementa-tion of MPA networks and assessment of current input and output management controls.

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