Assessment of PIT tag retention and post-tagging survival in metamorphosing juvenile sea lamprey

Abstract

Background: Passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags have been used to document and monitor the movement, behavior, or survival of numerous species of fishes. Data on short-and long-term survival and tag retention are needed before initiating studies using PIT tags on a new species or life stage. We evaluated the survival and tag retention of 153 metamorphosing juvenile sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus tagged with 12-mm PIT tags on three occasions using a simple surgical procedure. Results:Tag retention was 100 and 98.6% at 24 h and 28-105 days post-tagging. Of the lamprey that retained their tags, 87.3% had incisions sufficiently healed to prevent further loss. Survival was 100 and 92.7% at 24 h and 41-118 day post-tagging with no significant difference in survival between tagged and untagged control lamprey. Of the 11 lamprey that died, four had symptoms that indicated their death was directly related to tagging. Survival was positively correlated with sea lamprey length. Conclusions:Given the overall high level of survival and tag retention in this study, future studies can utilize 12-mm PIT tags to monitor metamorphosing juvenile sea lamprey movement and migration patterns.

Assessment of PIT tag retention, growth and post-tagging survival in juvenile lumpfish, Cyclopterus lumpus

“…bevel down, acute angle, to the side of the central line and away from the anterior); therefore, the probability of tag-induced mortality was reduced. In some longer studies, survival was marginally lower; > 95% in Fuller and McEntire [41] and 92% in Simard et al [32] at 41-118-day post-tagging. In one study, both fish and tag sizes had a clear impact on mortality, with mortality only occurring in smaller individuals (fork length < 103 mm) tagged with the larger tags (32 mm vs 23 mm) [15].…”

“…In some species (e.g. [19,32,36]), a minimal effect on survival and health has been observed in tagged individuals. In others (e.g.…”

“…A comparison of implantation methods found significantly reduced wound healing for fish tagged by incision compared to syringe [38]. Wound healing is not measured in all tagging studies [5,13,14,30,32,36,[39][40][41][42] (Additional file 2) and may not always be indicative of ill effects of tagging. However, wound healing should be monitored in the interest of fish welfare and ensured that the wound has no significant impact on survival, tag retention, growth, condition and general health.…”

“…Insertion points with healed skin, healed muscle and the internal muscle appearing closed were deemed sufficiently healed to prevent tag loss, while wounds that remained open were still considered vulnerable to tag loss (e.g. [32]). Any bruising, blood or missing tags were noted, and a subsample was photographed.…”

Potential changes to the biology and challenges to the management of invasive sea lampreyPetromyzon marinusin the Laurentian Great Lakes due to climate change

“…Telemetry studies would provide important insight into movements. Tagging with small passive integrated transponders is a method to investigate the early phases of the spawning migration (Quintella, Andrade, Espanhol, & Almeida, 2005;Simard, Sotola, Marsden, & Miehls, 2017) and may also detect adults returning to the same stream or nearby streams with PIT antennas. Small acoustic tags (2 mm diameter JSATS) are now available to track outmigration and early lake life of juvenile lamprey (e.g., Mueller, Liss, & Deng, 2019).…”