Cooperative Study of Spawning Aggregations

Lead Investigator: Rebecca Asch, East Carolina University, aschr16@ecu.edu

Natural Resource Manager: Michelle Johnston, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, and John Froeschke, Gulf Council

Project Team: William Heyman (Sustainable Marine Solutions); Mary Conley (The Nature Conservancy); Brad Erisman (NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center); Arnaud Grüss (Earth Sciences New Zealand); Scott Hickman (Charter Fishermen’s Association); David Moss, Nicole Pehl, Michelle Van Deventer (The Nature Conservancy); Jorge Brenner (Gulf of America Coastal Ocean Observing System)

Collaborators:Danielle Morley (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission)

Technical Monitors: Willem Klajbor (University of Miami Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies in support of NOAA) and Eric Robillard (NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center)

Federal Program Officer/Point of Contact: Caitlin Young (caitlin.young@noaa.gov)

Award Amount: $3,553,344

Award Period: October 2025 – September 2030

Why it matters: Fish spawning aggregations (FSAs) are hotspots of biological productivity where multiple fish species converge at predictable times and locations to reproduce. Due to their spatial and temporal predictability, FSAs are highly vulnerable to fishing pressure.  Although FSAs are critical for the maintenance of many of the Gulf’s most valuable fisheries, they are understudied and largely unmanaged in the Gulf. This cooperative project endeavors to identify, verify, prioritize, monitor, and model FSAs to inform their immediate and long-term conservation and management. Sustainable management of FSAs will be improved by active participation and collaboration of managers and fishers. This ensures their expert knowledge is incorporated into decision-making and helps develop consensus solutions to management challenges.

What the team is doing: This project builds off a prior RESTORE-funded research and engagement project on FSAs that established this team’s co-production process. The project will engage its management partners, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) and the Gulf Council, as well as fishers, scientists, and other interested parties through an advisory group. The team will also train a study fleet of fishers to survey sites selected as priority FSA locations in stakeholder workshops. Cooperative fieldwork will be focused on: 1) predicting and verifying FSAs in the Gulf through underwater video surveys, biological sampling, and site-specific environmental data collection; and 2) characterizing long-term, spatio-temporal and biophysical relationships at a total of six priority FSAs through passive acoustic and telemetry monitoring and semi-annual biological surveys. To evaluate the long-term habitat suitability of FSAs, the team will use ecological niche models (ENMs) and models of larval dispersal to examine connections among FSA sites and nursery areas. ENMs will be used to track and understand trends in spawning habitats and seasonality over recent decades and future projections under global change scenarios. Finally, the team will model larval dispersal between FSA sites and nursery areas, incorporating factors that affect larval mortality and growth into models, to serve as an indicator of fisheries recruitment.

Expected outcome: This project will co-produce a synthesis of expert, local knowledge on FSAs, along with verification and characterization of FSAs in the Gulf. The team will produce outputs, including spatiotemporal data and models, to determine effective and adaptive management practices for FSAs and connect with existing management tools used by the FGBNMS and Gulf Council. For example, ecological modeling efforts will generate monthly maps of essential fish habitat (EFH) for fish spawning that could be used to further characterize habitat areas of particular concern (HAPC). Consideration of       global change scenarios within models will also allow managers to prioritize conservation efforts based on their long-term contribution to productivity of fisheries that depend on FSA-forming species. Future projections of larval dispersal and connectivity among FSAs in the Gulf will be produced to inform the selection of sites for management. Cooperatively acquired FSA verification and monitoring data will support the Gulf Council in evaluating and developing FSA management measures. The project’s creation of a sentinel site program for FSAs will support our understanding of the impacts of global change on FSAs and how the resilience of current fisheries and MPA management systems may be affected.

Research area: Fish, fisheries, fishing communities, coastal change