This year has once again been action packed and eventful at the Bimini Biological Field Station! Earlier in the year, with the aid of

a brand new ultrasound device from our spon-sors E.I Medical Imaging Solutions, we confirmed that near-term pregnant female tiger sharks are using the shallow water environs of Bimini. This confirms our long-term hypothesis that Bimini is likely a pupping ground for tiger sharks, as well as lemon and nurse sharks! We also caught our larg-est female (and probably pregnant) tiger shark at 4m total length, and had the opportunity to ultra-sonically image and confirm early pregnancy in three great hammerhead sharks. With 218 juvenile lemon sharks PIT-tagged during the 22nd annual tagging event in 2017, this has been quite the year for baby sharks. Read all about our 2017 high-lights and experiences in our annual newsletter!

BIMINI SHARKLAB ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 2017

Information included:

Final figures of the year Volunteers, visitors, and updates on our shark

statistics and captures throughout 2017.

Travels & RepresentationWe have been communicating our results all over the globe. From staff movements, to publications

and international conferences.

PI ProfilesAn update on the projects of our three Principal Investigators. You can read about the progress they

have made so far.

Tales of a Shark StalkerA story by volunteer Sophia Emmons

What’s next? Read on to find more about the research and

activities that we will be participating in.

2017 annual shark stats:___________________________________________Total captures:Lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris) 380Nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) 44Tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) 54Southern stingray (Hypanus americanus) 37Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) 9Blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus) 25Dusky smooth-hound (Mustelus canis) 1Great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran) 8 Bull shark (C. leucas) 3Caribbean reef shark (C. perezi) 7Blacknose shark (C. acronotus) 5Atlantic sharpnose shark 6 (Rhizoprionodon terranovae)Night shark (C. signatus) 2Cuban dogfish (Squalus cubensis) 1

Grand total of captures = 580 elasmobranchs and turtles!

Largest: 396 cm tiger shark Smallest: 57.1 cm lemon shark

Media:BBFS has hosted six film teams from the US and Netherlands including four Shark Week spe-cials: ‘Hammerhead Invasion’, ‘Shark Storm’, ‘Phelps vs. Shark’ and ‘Shark School with Mi-chael Phelps’, Nature Zone with Dutch snake expert Dr. Freek Vonk and National Geo-graphic’s ‘Monster Fish’ with Dr. Zeb Hogan.

Outreach: Thirty-eight volunteers interned with us from Eu-rope, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and the USA and 78 students across four different University courses were hosted over the year. On two occasions we assisted Dr Grant from Palmdale Veterinary Clinic (Nassau) with his veterinarian hospital, South Bimini’s clinic turning the Sharklab into a makeshift vet clinic. Animals from North and South Bimini were attended to. Finally, we participated at Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festi-val for the fourth year in a row!

Scientific and Conservation Out-put Publications – Six research papers were accepted in high impact, peer-reviewed journals (e.g. Frontiers in Marine Science and Proceedings of the Royal Society) on topics varying from social, for-aging and refuge behavior in lemon sharks to local indicators of abundance trends and demographics for Bimini’s coastal sharks, and philopatry and re-gional connectivity of the great hammerhead shark.

Presentations – Scientists, BBFS principal investigators and students presented at three con-ferences this year including four of our team at the American Elasmobranch Society (Texas, US) and one at the Behaviour conference, (Lisbon, Portugal).

Research experience hosted – 30 members of the public hosted in nine 5-day intensive courses, han-dling sharks and learning field research methods and techniques.

High School student experiences – Sev-enty high school students from Camp Live Oak and Shedd Aquarium hosted in marine and shark biology classes.

Educational Open days – Visit by 35 stu-dents from McDonald High School, North Bimini in March to educate Bahamian children on ma-rine biology and the importance of a healthy marine ecosystem. Our outreach coordinator on Novem-ber 10th gave a lecture at the school to 50 students.

Trash Clean-up – organized and took part in eight local beach clean-ups where ~500 kg (1,000 lb.) of trash was collected.

Félicie Dhellemmes Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Project: Ecological conse-quences of personality in sharks

Aim: The project aims to gener-ate an in-depth understanding of the ecological consequences of personality-consistency in be-havioural response across time and context.

Method: Sharks’ personalities are measured using standard-ized tests in semi-captive pens. Wild monitoring is completed using acoustic telemetry (move-ments), stable isotopes (forag-ing specialization), DNA (her-itability) and mark-recapture (life-history traits).

Progress: To date 412 juvenile lemon sharks (0-3 years) were tested for at least two different personality traits. For each indi-vidual we collected a DNA sam-ple, morphometric measurements (n=306 with multiple captures) and for a subset of 59 sharks a sta-ble isotope sample. Since 2014, 62 of these sharks (1 year-old) were fitted with acoustic transmitters and monitored for 10 months.

Maurits van Zinnicq Bergmann Florida International University

Project: Intra-guild interactions shaping elasmobranch assemblag-es

Aim: Investigate the effects of competition and intra-guild predation on resource par-titioning (space, time and food) in adult elasmobranchs.

Method: Acoustic telemetry, Bait-ed Remote Underwater Video Sur-veys (BRUVS), individual-based modelling of competition, stable isotope analysis.

Progress: Currently, 14 bull, 18 blacktip, 14 Caribbean reef, 46 ti-ger, 19 nurse, 26 lemon, 14 great hammerhead sharks and 17 south-ern stingrays have been implant-ed with long-term acoustic tags. BRUVS are deployed every fort-night to quantify prey distribu-tions around Bimini. Future work will link acoustic telemetry data with BRUVS sampling and diet analysis to identify the underlying mechanisms of space use patterns (e.g. abiotic or biotic) and there-fore coexistence among species. Agent-based modelling will be used to generate predicted distri-bution patterns that will be com-pared to empirical distributions to examine the likelihood that a potential mechanism is involved.

Matthew Smukall Alaska Fairbanks University

Project: Ecology and movement of tiger sharks (G. cuvier) around Bimini

Aim: To determine movement patterns of juvenile and adult ti-ger sharks, their role in the lo-cal ecosystem, and if Bimini is serving as a nursery area.

Method: Shallow water longline captures, passive acoustic teleme-try, body condition factors, stable ble isotope and DNA analysis.

Progress: To date 28 juveniles and 18 adult tiger sharks ranging in size from 88cm to 396 cm total length have received surgically implanted 10-year acoustic transmitters. Two of these adults were females confirmed to be pregnant and near-term. Tiger sharks from Bimini have been doc-umented to migrate throughout the Southeast United States and Carib-bean, including Cuba, Texas, Flor-ida, Georgia, and South Carolina. A subset of tissue samples has been analyzed for stable isotope ratios, indicating an ontogenetic shift in trophic position and foraging hab-itat. Additional stable isotope sam-ples will be analyzed to more clearly understand the ecological role of this shark. Blood metabolite pa-rameters will be analyzed to deter-mine how body condition changes across season and age. Hormones are being analyzed to determine the reproductive status of mature females in order to understand the role parturition plays in movement.

Current PI Profiles

suppose you never really plan to be a stalker. It probably just happens by accident most of the time. One minute you’re admiring someone or something, then suddenly you’re obsessively following the target around hoping to catch even a glimpse of them. At least that’s how I ended up as a juvenile lemon shark stalker - com-pletely by happy accident. To be fair, we call it “tracking” at the Sharklab, not “stalking,” but it seems to boil down to the same thing: searching for individuals using ex-pensive equipment, predicting their daily habits, seeing who they spend their time with, and finding their popu-lar hangout spots. What started out as a fascination has quickly developed into an obsession and love for finding these juvenile lemon sharks swimming in the mangroves, growing into respectable and fierce adults that will one-day venture out into open waters and join the other predators of the sea.

Tracking juvenile lemon sharks is part of a larger study happening at the Sharklab. Principal investigator and resident lemon shark queen Felicie Dhellemmes is study-ing the ecological consequences of personality in ju-venile lemon sharks in Bimini, a project that surprised me when I heard about it. I had never considered that sharks might have different personalities, let alone that they may affect the ecology of an area. All 18 sharks that we’ve been tracking were Felicie’s from this sum-mer, implanted with acoustic tags that would register on the stationary passive receivers and the portable ac-tive-tracking receivers. Each tag emits a unique three or four number code that is transmitted using a series of pings that sound a bit like a submarine might. That is the sound that we, as trackers, are listening for in the water.A tracking day starts the same as any other full field day would, making up a drybox, pouring gas, and of course packing a lunch of last night’s delicious leftovers. There’s also some extra equipment that we pack that’s not on the standard drybox list, including two hydrophones, an ac-tive-tracking mobile receiver and a backup, headphones, and an acoustic tag for range testing. Once everything is all packed, we make the short trip to the Yacht Club channel and set out for the day on Thresher, our reliable tracking skiff. Like a lot of what we do at the Sharklab, our day depends heavily on the tides. As we glide to-wards the entrance of the channel in the early morning light, I check the markers which indicate what kind of a day we’re about to have. If we’re lucky, it will be a high

tide around midday with enough water to plane across the lagoon in the skiff. If we’re unlucky, low tide could be in the middle of the day, and it will be what Felicie calls a suicide mission. Ideally, we’d speed up to the start of the transect on the south side of North Bimini.Once the equipment is set up, the tracking day begins. While one person navigates the shallow lagoon, anoth-er sits at the bow of the boat, holding the hydrophone in the water and scanning the channels on the receiver to hear those faint submarine pings through the static. Ping, ping, ping, ping……...ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping……...ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. It’s shark 485, hanging out in his usual area at high tide, the nap spot. Sometimes the pings are clear and easy to count, especially when the shark is close. But often-times, the tracker will have to sit listening carefully to make out the code, turning the hydrophone in differ-ent directions to determine where the sound is loudest. Once a shark is identified, we take a directional bear-ing and an estimated distance from the boat based on the volume of the code. If we can get a visual on it, we can determine if it’s alone or in a social group of one or more sharks. Of course, there are sharks that regular-ly turn up on a tracking day. 667 is almost guaranteed to make an appearance at least once a day. Others are less frequently heard, and detecting an elusive shark is usually cause for excitement at the end of the day be-cause then we know it’s still alive and hopefully well. It’s easy to feel like a World War II submarine tracker or FBI agent when stalking the little sharks, with the large headphones and the acoustic receiver. Once we’ve suc-cessfully traveled from point 80 at the southern side of North Bimini, to point 1 up in Sharkland having found all of the sharks that were around to find, the tracking team heads home, while eagle rays jump in the sunset, ready for dinner. It’s all in a shark stalker’s day’s work.

a story by volunteer Sophia Emmons

I

Tales from a Shark Stalker

Staff updates Another year has gone by, and the Shark Lab has said goodbye to old friends, and welcomed new ones! This year new Managers Ellie Rich-ardson and Andrew Knott, Assistant Managers Raquel Braun and Griffin Garner, Media Man-ager Chelle Blais, and Outreach Coordinator Collin Davis! Shark Lab Director, Tristan Gut-tridge will be moving on in early 2018, and we have begun reviewing candidates to fill his role. And of course, another sweet potcake puppy, Matthew, was adopted by the lab late last year, and despite having some hip problems (he was found in a cistern after Hurricane Mat-thew) he has been thriving in his new home!

Looking to the future...

We expect 2018 to be another busy and successful year at the station. We will welcome ten new volunteers in ear-ly January, two of those being our new project students, Nicolas Lubitz and Kendall Brancart, to assist PI Felicie Dhellemmes and PI Maurits van Zinnicq Bergmann with their respective tracking and BRUVs projects.Our current PIs have begun writing their doctoral dis-sertations and will be finishing up their tenure at the station by summer, making room for two new PhD candidates! As always, we’re excited to design and de-velop new research objectives and learn more about the sharks we encounter here in Bimini. Watch out for a new improved sharklab facility as we are so very close to generating enough funds to make this dream a reality!

Sponsors The Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation is a partner of The Save Our Seas Foundation. We are indebted to them for their continued support of our research, and are looking forward to further collaborations in the future. It would not be possible to advance our work without the support of our sponsors, partners, and donors. They are invaluable to our station’s operation and research efforts, and we are grateful to every person for their assistance in our work at the Sharklab. Photographs by Chelle Blais, www.chelleblais.com

www.biminisharklab.com www.facebook/biminisharklab www.instagram.com/biminisharklab/ www.twitter.com/biminisharklab

This year we also hosted visiting PhD student Dennis Heinrich from the Southern Shark Ecol-ogy Group - an affiliate of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. Over the course of six months, he conducted two experiments: one semi-captive study of juvenile lemon sharks’ abil-ity to associate a fixed time and place with the availability of food; and one wild study of the ef-fects of provisioning on the spatial distribution and bio-energetics of juvenile lemon sharks. We look forward to hearing about this data in 2018!