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Vulnerability of the endangered Maugean Skate population to degraded environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour David Moreno, Jeremy Lyle, Jayson Semmens, Andrea Morash, Kilian Stehfest, Jaime McAllister, Bailee Bowen and Neville Barrett October 2020 FRDC Project No 2016-068 Vulnerability of the endangered Maugean Skate population to degraded environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour David Moreno, Jeremy Lyle, Jayson Semmens, Andrea Morash, Kilian Stehfest, Jaime McAllister, Bailee Bowen and Neville Barrett October 2020 FRDC Project No 2016-068 © 2020 Fisheries Research and Development Corporation. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-922352-38-5 (print) 978-1-922352-39-2 (electronic) Vulnerability of the endangered Maugean Skate population to degraded environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour 2016-068 2020 Ownership of Intellectual property rights Unless otherwise noted, copyright (and any other intellectual property rights, if any) in this publication is owned by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania. This publication (and any information sourced from it) should be attributed to Moreno, D., Lyle, J.M., Semmens, J.M., Morash, A., Stehfest, K., McAllister, J., Bowen, B., Barrett, N., 2020, Vulnerability of the endangered Maugean Skate population to degraded environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour, Fisheries Research and Development Corporation Project No. 2016-068. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, October. CC BY 3.0] Creative Commons licence All material in this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence, save for content supplied by third parties, logos and the Commonwealth Coat of Arms. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence is a standard form licence agreement that allows you to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt this publication provided you attribute the work. A summary of the licence terms is available from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/. The full licence terms are available from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/legalcode. Inquiries regarding the licence and any use of this document should be sent to: [email protected] Disclaimer The authors do not warrant that the information in this document is free from errors or omissions. The authors do not accept any form of liability, be it contractual, tortious, or otherwise, for the contents of this document or for any consequences arising from its use or any reliance placed upon it. The information, opinions and advice contained in this document may not relate, or be relevant, to a reader’s particular circumstances. Opinions expressed by the authors are the individual opinions expressed by those persons and are not necessarily those of the publisher, research provider or the FRDC. The Fisheries Research and Development Corporation plans, invests in and manages fisheries research and development throughout Australia. It is a statutory authority within the portfolio of the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, jointly funded by the Australian Government and the fishing industry. Researcher Contact Details FRDC Contact Details Name: Jeremy Lyle Address: 25 Geils Court Address: Nubeena Crescent, Deakin ACT 2600 Taroona, Tasmania, 7053 Phone: 02 6285 0400 Phone: 03 6226 8255 Fax: 02 6285 0499 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: www.frdc.com.au In submitting this report, the researcher has agreed to FRDC publishing this material in its edited form. FRDC 2016-068 Macquarie Harbour & Maugean Skate Table of contents List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................ vi Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................................... vii Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Objectives ............................................................................................................................................... 2 Methods .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Early life history ................................................................................................................................ 3 Egg surveys ................................................................................................................................. 3 Egg case morphology, predation rates and hatching success ...................................................... 3 Captive egg rearing ..................................................................................................................... 4 Spatial ecology................................................................................................................................... 5 Multi-sensor acoustic tags ........................................................................................................... 6 Capture and tag attachment ......................................................................................................... 6 Range testing ............................................................................................................................... 8 Environmental data ..................................................................................................................... 8 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................... 8 Eco-physiology ................................................................................................................................ 11 Adults ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Neonate ..................................................................................................................................... 14 Size composition .............................................................................................................................. 15 Ethics and permits ............................................................................................................................ 15 Results .................................................................................................................................................. 16 Early life history .............................................................................................................................. 16 Egg distribution ......................................................................................................................... 16 Egg viability .............................................................................................................................. 18 Egg description and development ............................................................................................. 19 Environmental data (water column) ................................................................................................ 23 Spatial ecology................................................................................................................................. 26 Occurrence ................................................................................................................................ 26 Behavioural change point analysis ............................................................................................ 29 Horizontal space use ................................................................................................................. 30 Vertical space use ...................................................................................................................... 33 Diurnal patterns of space use .................................................................................................... 35 Environmental activity spaces ................................................................................................... 36 Eco-physiology ................................................................................................................................ 39 Adults ........................................................................................................................................ 39 Neonate ..................................................................................................................................... 41 Size composition .............................................................................................................................. 41 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................