Home range, movements and daily activity of the white seabream Diplodus sargus (Linnaeus, 1758) during the spawning season

The knowledge of behavior of coastal fish during their reproductive season is an important information for the management of commercially important species and for the design of marine protected areas. This paper couples for the first time data on the movements, daily activity and home range of the white seabream, Diplodus sargus to data on its gonadal cycle. Five white seabreams caught along the Zingaro coast in the Gulf of Castellammare (NW Sicily, western Mediterranean) were tagged with miniaturized transmitters, released close to the fishing site and their movements monitored with an array of 13 receivers. The analysis of the acoustic detection data showed that (1) the tagged fishes had a smaller home range than previously known, possibly due to the seabed morphology in the study site, and (2) they moved to a deeper site in a very restricted and well identified time period. The spatial and temporal characteristics of such unusual downward movement suggest that it corresponded to spawning aggregation episodes.