New Depths
How bonefish reproduction research—in the lab and in the wild—could help save a species in decline BY ALEXANDRA MARVAR
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rom two-foot-wide bunks in the bow of a Bahamian lobster boat called the Lady Breanna, to a ribbed inflatable research vessel being nudged in the dead of night by a curious 9-foot tiger shark, to a 25,000-gallon laboratory tank full of bonefish broadcasting eggs and sperm in a historic spawning event, four years of investigation into the mysterious behaviors of bonefish and their offspring have taken scientists to some wild places. On one recent expedition, a research vessel hovered for days near a cloud of thousands of bonefish. Preparing to spawn, the bonefish looked like a glistening bubble of black ink suspended in the cerulean flats off the Abaco Islands. Suddenly, on day
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B O N E F I S H & T A R P O N J O U R N A L SPRING 2021
four, the fish mobilized, heading beyond the steep drop of the continental shelf and taking an unexpected dive into the abyss of the Providence Channel. The research team watched, astonished, as the fish plunged deeper than experts had ever thought possible, to 450 feet. “We knew from previous research that they went offshore at night to spawn, and that they went deeper, but we had no idea that they went that deep,” said Dr. Aaron Adams, a senior scientist at Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Director of Science and Conservation for BTT. He is also one of the lead investigators of the Bonefish Reproductive Research Project, an endeavor bridging fieldwork and lab
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