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GENERAL INFORMATION

Author Information:

Darcy Bradley, Alicia M. Caughman, Sandra A. Fogg, Reniel B. Cabral, Juan Mayorga, Whitney Goodell, Katherine D. Millage, Timothy D. White

*Co-first authors.

Corresponding author: Darcy Bradley (darcybradley@ucsb.edu)

Funding: National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas Program

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PROJECT INFORMATION

Estimates of home range sizes for marine fishes are essential for designing and assessing the effects of spatial wildlife conservation policies and management interventions. However, in situ studies of marine species are challenging and often expensive, resulting in a paucity of data on the home range size of the vast majority of marine fishes. Here, we develop a set of new datasets, which we collectively refer to as Marine Fish Movement, that synthesizes published empirically evaluated home ranges reported for adult marine fishes that interact with fisheries (either as a target or incidental catch) and leverage these data to estimate home range sizes for unstudied species. The empirical data contain estimated home range sizes (km2) for 185 species across 61 family groups from 170 studies published between 1971 and 2022. We use a Random Forest regression model to estimate home range sizes (km2) for 667 fished marine species currently lacking home range estimates. Marine Fish Movement can inform spatial management strategies including the design and administration of marine protected areas and dynamic fisheries management to meet sustainability goals.

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SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION

Licenses/restrictions placed on the data, or limitations of reuse: CC0 - Creative Commons License

Links/relationships to ancillary or related data sets:

This data file is part of the Marine Fish Movement dataset that contains three companion data files:
(1) empirical_homeranges.csv: empirical home range sizes for commercially relevant marine fishes collected via a literature review (n = 185 species);
(2) movement_classification.csv; a movement keyword for commercially relevant marine fishes collected via a sequential search of fish life history databases;
(3) homerange_rf_predictions.csv; estimated home range sizes for commercially relevant marine fishes lacking empirical home range estimates (n = 667 species).

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DATA DESCRIPTION & FILE OVERVIEW

(1) empirical_homeranges.csv is part of the Marine Fish Movement dataset (reference forthcoming). It contains estimated home range sizes (km2) for 185 species across 61 family groups from 170 studies published between 1971 and 2022 collected via a targeted literature review of commercially relevant marine fishes.

The data file contains the following information:
Number of variables: 13
Number of cases/rows: 221

Variable list/column headings:

• species: scientific name for species (Genus species)
• common_name: common name for species in English
• family: scientific family designation for species
• homerange: home range size (in km^2; calculated from individual observations if mean was not reported)
• hr_sd: standard deviation of home range sizes in study (calculated from individual observations if available)
• hr_percent: % utilization distribution (75, 80, 95, etc.)
• hr_type: “KUD” for kernel utilization distribution, might be referred to as a UD; “MCP” for minimum convex polygon; “GEO” for other geometric estimation technique. Identifying the analytical technique used to estimate the home range
• method: data collection method (values: direct observation, mark-recapture, telemetry. Identifying the observation method used to measure a home range; note that telemetry refers to satellite, acoustic, and radio telemetry)
• n_ind: number of individuals reported in study (if no value was given, recorded as 1 for conservative estimate in weighted geometric mean calculation for species)
• study_duration: number of days of study (midpoint of range (or mean if available - specified), rounded up to nearest whole day)
• location: descriptive location of study (country, ocean, region, etc.)
• ref: source reference for the value
• notes: notes regarding data

(2) movement_classification.csv is part of the Marine Fish Movement dataset (reference forthcoming). It contains movement keywords and a categorical classifier (low, medium, high) for 701 commercially relevant marine fishes.

Number of variables: 8
Number of cases/rows: 701

Variable list/column headings:

• species: scientific name for species (Genus species)
• movement_classifier: low/medium/high categorical movement based on keywords (see Table 2 in the companion publication)
• movement_keyword: keyword from FishBase/FAO/IUCN search (see Table 2 in the companion publication)
• source: data source for movement_keyword (FB = FishBase, FAO = Food and Agriculture Association, IUCN = International Union for Conservation of Nature, REF = listed reference)
• notes: notes on species from data source
• alt_speces: alternate scientific name for species

(3) homerange_rf_predictions.csv is part of the Marine Fish Movement dataset (reference forthcoming). It contains estimated home range sizes (km2) for 667 fished marine species that lack empirical home range size estimates as well as variables used to parameterize a Random Forest regression model.

The data file contains the following information:
Number of variables: 14
Number of cases/rows: 667

Variable list/column headings:

• species: scientific name for species (Genus species)
• predicted_homerange: home range size (in km^2) generated by the random forest model
• observed_homerange: home range size (in km^2) from empirical literature review
• family: scientific family designation of species
• geog_range: geographic range of the species (in km^2; source: AquaMaps)
• movement_keyword: combined movement and habitat information for fish species (from movement_classification.csv).
• demers_pelag: habitat type that species occupies (source: FishBase)
• length - length of species (in cm): Accepted values were standard length, fork length, and total length (source: FishBase)
• common_name: common name for species in English
• kfin: carrying capacity of the species (# individuals) (source: Sala et al. 2021)
• r_fin: intrinsic growth rate of the species (source: Sala et al. 2021)
• diet_troph3: trophic level of the species (source: Fish Base)
• class: scientific class designation of the species
• iucn_category: IUCN Red List Category for the species; DD - data deficient, LC - Least Concern, NT - Near Threatened, VU - Vunerable, EN - Endangered, CR: Critically Endangered (source: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species)

Missing data: NA