Jeffrey A. Buckel's research while affiliated with North Carolina State University and other places
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Publications (126)
Installations of artificial structures in coastal oceans create de facto habitat for marine life. These structures encompass wide varieties of physical characteristics, reflecting their multiple, diverse purposes and creating a need to understand which characteristics maximize fish habitat. Here, we test how physical characteristics-horizontal area...
Achieving long-term retention of pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) has proven difficult for all fishes but is particularly challenging for small migrant species due to the relatively large size of tags. In this study we tested the latest and smallest PSAT model on the market, the mark-report satellite tag (mrPAT), and developed a simple, cost-...
The effectiveness of venting and recompression for increasing postrelease survival for fish that experience barotrauma has rarely been tested across a range of depths. We conducted a field tag–recapture experiment to test how well venting and recompression each increased postrelease survival of Black Sea Bass Centropristis striata relative to untre...
Fisheries on lower trophic levels act as and compete with predators in aquatic ecosystems for potentially limited prey resources. Multiple predators in a system are often managed to achieve a Bmsy that could result in a total predator consumption level the ecosystem cannot support. We developed an Ecopath model for Pamlico Sound, NC and its tributa...
Mercury in seafood is a neurotoxicant that threatens human health. Dynamic rates of mercury emission, re-emission, and atmospheric deposition warrant studies into mercury concentrations in fish because many are consumed by humans and can serve as sentinels of mercury levels in the environment. We modeled trends in total mercury content in an apex m...
Descender devices are increasingly recognized as a leading means of barotrauma mitigation for released reef fishes. Yet, some resource users oppose regulations requiring or encouraging descender device use, arguing that predators frequently eat fish during release (depredation), sometimes causing device loss. We synthesized data for over 1,200 desc...
External attachment of electronic tags has been increasingly used in fish studies. Many researchers have used ad hoc attachment methods and provided little or no validation for the assumption that tagging itself does not bias animal behavior or survival. We compared six previously published methods for externally attaching acoustic transmitters to...
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are increasingly used to rebuild fish populations. In 2009, eight MPAs were designated off the southeast United States with the goal of rebuilding populations of long-lived deep-water reef fishes. We tested whether reef fish within the largest of these MPAs, the Snowy Wreck Marine Protected Area (SWMPA), have increased...
Acute morbidity and mortality of marlins (family Istiophoridae) in hook‐and‐line fisheries have been studied; however, there has been little or no investigation of the skeletal injuries incurred from terminal tackles that could lead to decreased rates of postrelease survival. The objective of this study was to evaluate skeletal injuries in recreati...
Tidal creeks along the southeastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico coastlines provide nursery habitats for commercially and ecologically important nekton, including juvenile blue crabs Callinectes sapidus, a valuable and heavily landed seafood species. Instream and watershed urbanization may influence the habitat value that tidal creeks provide to blue cr...
Fishery regulations mandate the release of many caught fish, elevating the importance of having accurate estimates of discard mortality. Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus are overfished and undergoing overfishing in the southeast U.S. Atlantic, in part due to the high number of releases that die from discard mortality. We used acoustic telemetry to...
The behavior of fish around bait is poorly understood despite it being important for the fish catching process and estimating relative abundance. We used a fine-scale acoustic positioning system to quantify the movements of 26 red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) around 120 bait deployments in 2019 at a natural reef site (~37-m deep) in North Carolin...
Most demersal fishes are difficult to observe and track due to methodological and analytical constraints. We used an acoustic positioning system to elucidate the horizontal and vertical movements of 44 red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) off North Carolina, USA, in 2019. Mean movement rate and distance off bottom varied by individual, with larger re...
Estimates of discard mortality are difficult to obtain. Meta-analysis or life-history-based approaches to estimate discard mortality could provide informed estimates when direct empirical estimates are not available. We used data from published literature across a variety of fish species to determine if hooking condition (good vs. poor) and species...
Development reduces the amount of secondary biological production in coastal estuaries. However, the magnitude of this reduction remains largely unknown. We are not aware of studies that have quantified lost secondary biological production in estuaries as a result of interdecadal coastal development of salt‐marsh habitats. Our objective was to demo...
Fish often aggregate to spawn, feed, rest, or avoid predation. Direct observations of very high counts of large‐bodied grouper on deep shipwrecks, however, do not fit into typical descriptions of spawning‐, resource‐, or predation‐driven aggregations. To investigate whether these observations are rare or part of an underlying pattern, we synthesize...
In some fisheries, releases are a high percentage of total catch. Recent tagging data of marine fishes have revealed that recapture of the same individual multiple times occurs frequently. We investigated the magnitude of this phenomenon and its effect on survival using previously collected mark-recapture data of four reef-associated species. We us...
The Weakfish Cynoscion regalis, an economically important species, has declined over the last 30 years, corresponding with an increase in total mortality according to the most recent stock assessment. We estimated estuarine-specific and coastwide apparent survival of Weakfish by using a Cormack-Jolly-Seber model to provide insights into the spatiot...
Rebuilding of exploited fish stocks at low biomass requires accurate mortality estimates. Weakfish (Cynoscion regalis) abundance is at historical lows caused by an increasing instantaneous total mortality (Z) in recent years, but uncertainty exists regarding the relative importance of instantaneous fishing mortality (F) and natural mortality (M) to...
Fate assignment is crucial to the results of survival studies, particularly those that utilize acoustic tagging. Most current methodologies are at least partially subjective, thus having a means of objectively assigning fates would improve precision, accuracy, and utility of such studies. We released 57 acoustically tagged deepwater groupers of six...
It is unclear how urbanization affects secondary biological production in estuaries in the southeastern USA. We estimated production of larval/juvenile Fundulus heteroclitus in salt marsh areas of North Carolina tidal creeks and tested for factors influencing production. F. heteroclitus were collected with a throw trap in salt marshes of 5 creeks s...
We tested the ability of venting and descender (recompression) devices to increase the relative survival of released Black Sea Bass Centropristis striata, a physoclistous reef species with high discard rates in hook‐and‐line fisheries that operate in the U.S. Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. We caught fish via hook and line from waters that were...
We analyzed four decades of presence–absence data from a fishery-independent survey to characterize the long-term phenology of river herring (alewife, Alosa pseudoharengus; and blueback herring, Alosa aestivalis) spawning migrations in their southern distribution. We used logistic generalized additive models to characterize the average ingress, pea...
Food habits in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, are poorly described despite the estuary's large size and importance as nursery and fisheries habitat. We conducted the first multi‐year, multispecies food habits study in Pamlico Sound, sampling the stomach contents of 16,913 predators representing 25 species. Predators were sampled from fisheries‐inde...
We estimated condition-specific survival rates of gray triggerfish (Balistes capriscus) using a tag-recapture approach and extrapolated these values to produce an overall discard survival estimate for the US South Atlantic recreational hook-and-line fishery. Tag return rates of fish tagged at the seafloor using SCUBA served as a reference for retur...
We estimated rates of survival as well as effects of habitat on catch rates of juvenile yellow‐phase American Eels Anguilla rostrata in southeastern U.S. tidal creeks. We trapped and marked eels with PIT tags at 24 fixed sites in eight North Carolina tidal creeks and then recaptured and resighted the tagged individuals to estimate apparent survival...
Minimum length limits are used to manage dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus in the U.S. South Atlantic but rates of discard mortality are unknown in this fishery and others throughout its worldwide range. We estimated discard mortality for dolphinfish in the U.S. South Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico recreational hook and line fishery using co...
Development in the southeastern US coastal plain generates the need for a better understanding of how survival and abundance of estuarine nekton respond to urbanization. Apparent survival and density of the dominant Atlantic coast salt marsh fish, the mummichog Fundulus heteroclitus, were estimated in four North Carolina tidal creeks using a model...
Estimates of animal abundance are widely used to support conservation and resource management. For populations in open systems, abundance estimates from tagging data can be highly uncertain or biased. Here, we develop a novel approach to estimate abundance of an open population by pairing two models, each utilizing distinct tagging data. Using data...
Southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) exhibit environmental sex determination (ESD), where environmental factors can influence phenotypic sex during early juvenile development but only in the presumed XX female genotype. Warm and cold temperatures masculinize fish with mid-range conditions producing at most 50% females. Due to sexually dimor...
The addition of acoustic telemetry to conventional tagging studies can generate direct estimates of mortality and movement rates to inform fisheries management. We applied a combined telemetry and tag-return design to southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma), a coastal flatfish that demonstrates limited movements within estuarine habitats coupl...
A commonly cited reason for the failure of time-area closures to achieve fisheries management goals is the displacement of fishing effort from inside the closure into the surrounding area still open to fishing. Designing time-area closures that are predicted to achieve management goals under multiple spatial patterns of effort redistribution will i...
We describe hook trauma to the roof of the mouth in dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus and compare computed tomography (CT) scanning to gross necropsy (GN) as a technique for diagnosing hooking injury in fish. Forty‐two dolphinfish carcasses spanning a range of hook injuries were collected and CT scanned, and 33 of these were evaluated using GN. Speci...
Most reef fish surveys use bait to attract individuals to bite hooks, enter traps, or be counted on underwater video. The behavior of fish around baited gears, however, is poorly understood despite its importance for estimating catchability. We used a fine-scale acoustic positioning system to elucidate the movement behaviors of 11 telemetered gray...
We present a novel spatially explicit kernel density approach to estimate the proportional contribution of a prey to a predator’s diet by mass. First, we compared the spatial estimator to a traditional cluster-based approach using a Monte Carlo simulation study. Next, we compared the diet composition of three predators from Pamlico Sound, North Car...
Discard survival of deepwater (>60 m) groupers (Serranidae; Epinephelinae) is often assumed to be 0% given the severity of barotrauma and the inability of fish to submerge. We used acoustic telemetry to study the activity of 19 deepwater grouper after a recompressed release with a descender device, achieved by rapidly returning fish to a depth wher...
The spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) is one of the most economically important sportfish in the U.S. South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, including at its northern distributional extent in North Carolina and Virginia. The recent stock assessment for this region used an assumed fixed rate of natural mortality (M), obtained from a general life-hi...
In the absence of winter thermal refugia, acute cold stress can lead to episodic mass mortality (winterkill) in fishes. Populations existing near the northern extent of a species' latitudinal range, such as spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus (Cuvier, 1830), in North Carolina, USA, are particularly vulnerable to winterkill. Information on cold to...
Winterkill in spotted seatrout Cynoscion nebulosus is associated with extreme cold conditions throughout much of the species' geographic range. However, rigorous study is needed to confirm longstanding but largely untested assumptions that acute cold stress drives overwinter loss. We provide the first direct field-based estimates of spotted seatrou...
The specific biological impacts of anthropogenic activities and associated fragmentation of estuarine habitats remain understudied. We compared nekton communities and fish movement at 9 road crossings (with culverts) and a tenth crossing ('reference' crossing that lacked a road or a culvert) in first-order Spartina alterniflora-dominated tidal cree...
We used fish body depth to predict trap center-to-center mesh sizes that would optimize size selection of black sea bass Centropristis striata for both current and proposed minimum size limits for this species. We fished trap types of five different square mesh sizes/configurations: (1) 38.1 mm mesh, (2) 38.1 mm mesh on five sides and 50.8 mm mesh...
We conducted three laboratory studies to determine the effects of surgically implanted, passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags on survival, tag retention, and growth in two abundant estuarine fishes. The effects of the 12.5‐mm PIT tags were examined in Spot Leiostomus xanthurus , and the effects of the 12.5‐mm and 8.4‐mm tags were examined in Mu...
We sampled variably altered tidal creeks to determine community structure in a developing coastal (USA) landscape. Throw trapping collected smaller and juvenile nekton in the vegetated marsh while minnow trapping in unvegetated channels targeted relatively larger fishes. Non-metric multidimensional scaling ordinations were used to assess community...
Gillnets fished in North Carolina, USA, estuaries have high rates of bycatch relative to the target catch of southern flounder, Paralichthys lethostigma Jordan & Gilbert. This study tested whether rectangular-mesh gillnets would maintain catch rates of southern flounder and reduce fish bycatch relative to conventional diamond-mesh gillnets in two N...
Little is known about the behavioral responses of fishes at low temperatures. Of particular interest are predator-prey interactions because feeding at low temperature is necessary for the overwinter survival of many species. This experiment examined how low temperatures affect behavioral interactions between bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix L) and two...
Multi-species approaches are increasingly being used to gain a better understanding of ecosystem structure and population dynamics. Food habits data are critical for such approaches; however, there are no objective techniques to determine the number of samples required to fully describe a predator’s diet. We developed a Bayesian state-space model t...
Monofilament gillnets fished in North Carolina (USA) estuaries have high levels of bycatch relative to target catch of southern flounder Paralichthys lethostigma. Modifications to gillnet characteristics and fishing styles intended to reduce bycatch rates of important species such as red drum Sciaenops ocellatus but maintain southern flounder catch...
Despite a moratorium on take, population abundances of river herring in North Carolina remain a small percentage of historic values, and are considered depleted by the NC Division of Marine Fisheries. Among the multiple stressors impacting river herring are habitat loss and barriers to migration. Road culverts may impede upstream migration, resulti...
Salt marsh creeks are important sources of biological production but have become increasingly disturbed by human activities along the rapidly developing U.S. Atlantic coast. We sampled six variably altered salt marsh creeks in coastal North Carolina USA monthly from spring through fall 2012 and 2013 with an actively fished 1 m2 throw trap and passi...
Spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus, is one of the most economically important sportfish in North Carolina. The state’s recent stock assessment concluded the population is overfished; however, the extent to which variability in natural mortality (M) affects annual estimates of fishing mortality (F) is unknown. This is potentially important becaus...
We estimated survival rates of discarded black sea bass in various release conditions using tag-recapture data. Fish were captured with traps and hook and line from waters 29–34 m deep off coastal North Carolina, USA, marked with internal anchor tags, and observed for release condition. Fish tagged on the bottom using SCUBA served as a control grou...
We analyzed tag returns from a long-term tagging program to evaluate the movement patterns of the Albemarle Sound-Roanoke River (AR) stock of Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) during a period of stock recovery in 1991-2008. The AR stock was found to increase its movement outside the Albemarle Sound estuary (from <4% to 15-31%) as it recovered from 19...
We examined size‐selective feeding in captive and free‐ranging Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Thunnus thynnus . For the captive study, Bluefin Tuna were maintained in a cylindrical net‐pen enclosure (30.5 m in diameter; 15.2 m deep) located 32.2 km offshore of Virginia. Tests of prey size selectivity by captive Bluefin Tuna were observed using underwater vi...
We estimated survival rates of discarded black sea bass (Centropristis striata) in various release conditions using tag-recapture data. Fish were captured with traps and hook and line from waters 29-34mdeep off coastal North Carolina, USA, marked with internal anchor tags, and observed for release condition. Fish tagged on the bottom using SCUBA se...
We evaluated the performance of small (12.5 mm long) passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags and custom detection antennas for obtaining fine-scale movement and demographic data of mummichog Fundulus heteroclitus in a salt marsh creek. Apparent survival and detection probability were estimated using a Cormack Jolly Seber (CJS) model fitted to det...
Cross-stocking involves the use of fish from nonnatal sources to augment populations. This practice may not be effective, especially if fish from different populations are not well adapted to the environmental conditions of the areas intended for enhancement. Yet, the ecological consequences of cross-stocking have received little attention,
particu...
Density dependence can stabilize or destabilize population size through negative or positive feedback controls operating over different spatial and temporal scales. While many species have been shown to exhibit density dependence, the topic has received little attention in estuaries where environmental variability and larval supply are often consid...
Cross‐stocking involves the use of fish from nonnatal sources to augment populations. This practice may not be effective, especially if fish from different populations are not well adapted to the environmental conditions of the areas intended for enhancement. Yet, the ecological consequences of cross‐stocking have received little attention, particu...
We estimated natural mortality rates (M) of age-1 Spot Leiostomus xanthurus by using a sonic telemetry approach. Sonic transmitters were surgically implanted into a total of 123 age-1 Spot in two North Carolina estuarine creeks during spring 2009 and 2010, and the fish were monitored by using a stationary acoustic receiver array and manual tracking...
Length distributions of juvenile bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) are bimodal, consisting of spring- and summer-spawned fish. Research during the 1990s from the northeastern United States suggested that the summer cohort contributes little to the adult population and that overwinter mortality may limit their survival. We examined length distributions...
Density dependence can stabilize or destabilize population size through negative or positive feedback controls operating over different spatial and temporal scales. While many species have been shown to exhibit density dependence, the topic has received little attention in estuaries where environmental variability and larval supply are often consid...
We estimated pelagic larval duration (PLD) and age from the otolith microstructure of post-larval and juvenile gag, Mycteroperca microlepis (Goode and Bean, 1879). These estimates were used to: (1) estimate spawning periods; (2) evaluate lunar periodicity in spawning; (3) assess relationships between PLD and fertilization date, ingress date, captur...
The need to estimate energetic status in fish is common, but determining energy content is costly. We examined the relationship between the energy density of wild juvenile bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix (115–310 mm) and multiple indicators of energetic status to develop regression models for predicting bluefish energy content. Energy density was stro...
We compared numbers of strikes, proportions of fish that hooked up after strikes, proportions of fish that stayed on hook (retained) after hook up, and numbers of fish caught between circle and J hooks rigged with dead natural fish bait (ballyhoo) and trolled for three oceanic predator species: dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus), yellowfin tuna (Thu...
Protracted spawning and pulsed juvenile production are common in coastal spawning fishes, the phenology of which determines potential environmental effects on recruitment. This article examines bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix), a cosmopolitan coastal spawning species that produces multiple cohorts of juveniles utilizing both estuarine and coastal hab...
Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 1288–1299
Predator–prey interactions are a primary structuring force vital to the resilience of marine communities and sustainability of the world’s oceans. Human influences on marine ecosystems mediate changes in species interactions. This generality is evinced by the cascading effects of overharvesting top predators on...
Relatively few studies have used passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags for monitoring fishes in saltwater environments compared with freshwater systems. However, recent advances in PIT tags and associated detection equipment have allowed their application in estuarine systems to examine fish abundance and movement patterns. PIT tags permit grea...
Spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) are the most targeted marine recreational species in North Carolina. The state’s recent assessment concluded the population is overfished; however, the extent to which variability in natural mortality (M), particularly during winter, affects annual estimates of fishing mortality (F) is unknown. This is potenti...
We examined diet, dietary niche width, and diet overlap of blue marlins Makaira nigricans, dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus, yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares, and wahoos Acanthocybium solandri caught in the western North Atlantic Ocean during the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament (BRT) in 1998–2000 and 2003–2009 and dolphinfish captured outside the BR...
As habitat based management initiatives become more widespread in fisheries management and conservation it is important to be able to differentiate between areas impacted by human activities and those that are relatively untouched. Cumulative impact approaches have been used to measure anthropogenic effects regionally and globally; however, there h...
We measured bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) weights, densities, and prey sizes during the summers of 1992 and 1993 and diets over a 4-year period (1990-1993) in the Hudson River estuary. This information was used to estimate the loss of young-of-the-year (YOY) striped bass (Morone saxatilis) resulting from YOY bluefish predation. We then compared th...
We examined diet, dietary niche width, diet overlap, and prey size–predator size relationships of blue marlins Makaira nigricans, dolphinfish Coryphaena hippurus, yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares, and wahoos Acanthocybium solandri caught in the western North Atlantic Ocean during the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament (BRT) in 1998–2000 and 2003–2009...
Reliable data on reef fishes inhabiting the southeastern United States (North Carolina to Florida) continental shelf large marine ecosystem are difficult to obtain; catch quotas and time and area closures limit the collection of fishery-dependent samples. Further, unbiased fishery-independent samples are expensive to collect with conventional fishi...
Estimating the selectivity patterns of various fishing gears is a critical component of fisheries stock assessment due to the difficulty in obtaining representative samples from most gears. We used short-term recoveries (n = 3587) of tagged red drum Sciaenops ocellatus to directly estimate age- and length-based selectivity patterns using generalize...
Diet, gastric evacuation rates, daily ration, and population-level prey demand of bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) were estimated in the continental shelf waters off North Carolina. Bluefin tuna stomachs were
collected from commercial fishermen during the late fall and winter months of 2003–04, 2004–05, and 2005–06. Diel patterns in mean gut fullness...
We used 25 years of conventional tagging data (n=6173 recoveries) and 3 years of ultrasonic telemetry data (n=105 transmitters deployed) to examine movement rates and directional preferences of four age classes of red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) in estuarine and coastal waters of North Carolina. Movement rates of conventionally tagged red drum were...
