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A Tale of Two Timescales: Using Otolith Microchemistry to Improve Our Understanding of Alligator Gar Movement in the Lower Trinity River, Texas

SEAFWA Journal Volume 6, March 2019
Fisheries Outstanding Technical Paper

Telemetry-based study of alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) movement in the lower Trinity River, Texas, indicated that fish primarily re- mained within discrete home ranges less than 60 river kilometers (rkm), supporting the potential for local-scale management. However, the temporal scale of inference was limited (22 months), which may inadequately represent fish movements and home range size at the lifetime (i.e., ≥50 years) scale. Therefore, we used otolith microchemistry to examine the long-term movements of alligator gar (n = 59; total length range 1152 to 2420 mm, age range 4 to 60...