Poster Presentation 2024 Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting combined with NZMSS

From Dusk Til Dawn: Modelling the environmental influences on the behaviour of Western Rock Lobster, Panulirus cygnus George (#635)

Hannah M Williams 1 , Tim Langlois 1 , Matthew Navarro 1 , Simon de Lestang 2 , Emma-Jade Tuffley 2 , Brooke Gibbons 1
  1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  2. Fisheries, Department of Primary Resources and Regional Development, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Sustainable fisheries management requires comprehensive understanding of the population trends of the target species and the environmental and biological drivers. In the West Coast Rock Lobster Managed Fishery (WCRLMF), this is largely achieved through the integration of catch and catch-rate data to calculate the catchability and therefore health of the stock. However, trends in catchability may not always reflect the underlying behaviour of western rock lobster. This study aimed to investigate the environmental and biological influences on the wild behaviour of western rock lobster using multi-day in-situ autonomous camera systems. We used full-subset generalised additive mixed models to investigate the relationship between covariate and den occupancy. Our results suggest rock lobsters are more active during a new moon, swell highest and when predators are present in the den. Our findings suggest that western rock lobsters vary their hourly and daily activity in response to the relative risk of predation by foraging more when visibility is lowest and exiting or avoiding the den when a predator is presentFuture studies investigating the biotic and abiotic influences on western rock lobster behaviour should be undertaken in a fisheries closure to remove the possible confounding effects of fishing activity.