Home range and movement patterns of parrotfish in subtropical reefs of the Southwestern Atlantic

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Abstract Parrotfish are considered a key functional group on reefs, yet little information exists on home ranges of this group. We estimated short-term home ranges of two species of parrotfish (Sparisoma axillare and S. frondosum) on subtropical rocky reefs in Arraial do Cabo, Brazil, using active acoustic telemetry. We tagged 39 S. axillare and 25 S. frondosum and monitored them for 6.4 ± 0.35 days. Both species showed high residency during monitoring and relatively small home ranges of 30,600 m2± 3,000 SE for S. axillare and 31,200 m2± 4,000 for S. frondosum (Minimum Convex Polygon). Home range size increased with size of fish and was dependent on life phase for S. axillare, but not for S. frondosum. The relatively small home range sizes compared to other species and the same species in other locations may be related to high productivity and resource availability locally. The high residency and small home ranges observed here indicate that, at least under the short-term and site-specific conditions of Arraial do Cabo, small Marine Protected Areas could offer conservation benefits for S. axillare and S. frondosum, although broader and longer-term studies are needed to confirm this across their range.

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