Crossing the Gulf Stream: Movements of Adult Lemon Sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) Between the Southeastern Florida and Western Bahamas Shelves

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Abstract
The lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, is a large sub-tropical elasmobranch found in the western Atlantic Ocean from Virginia, U. S. A. to Brazil, including The Bahamas and the Caribbean Sea. Habitat use by juveniles in Florida, U. S. A. and in The Bahamas has been previously well described, but little is known about horizontal and vertical movements of adults. Pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs) and acoustic tags were deployed on lemon sharks off Jupiter, Florida, U. S. A. (n = 6; two females, four males) and at Tiger Beach, The Bahamas (n = 1; one female) for programmed deployment periods ranging from 10 to 120 days. All sharks demonstrated similar day and night patterns across the tracked period regardless of location or sex. A male tagged in Jupiter crossed the Gulf Stream, and the tag detached near Tiger Beach, while the female tagged at Tiger Beach in 2008 was recorded on the acoustic array in Florida in 2013–which are the third and fourth documented cases of a lemon shark crossing the Gulf Stream. The same sharks that crossed the Gulf Stream also periodically went to depths below 100 m, with a maximum recorded depth of 176 m. Finally, all tagged sharks were present around Jupiter in the winter months from December to May and absent from June to November. This study provides new information on vertical habitat use in lemon sharks as well as data relevant to the species' U. S. Federal Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) designations.

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