348 
National Marine 
Fisheries Service 
NOAA 
Abstract —Determining movement, 
behavior, and activity patterns is of cen¬ 
tral importance to conservation efforts 
for threatened and endangered species 
because this knowledge is crucial for 
prioritizing management actions. In 
this study, we used acceleration data 
loggers (ADLs) concurrently with pas¬ 
sive acoustic monitoring to examine 
behavior, activity patterns, and habi¬ 
tat use of juvenile smalltooth sawfish 
(Pristis pectinata) in a Florida nursery. 
Data from the ADLs indicate that small¬ 
tooth sawfish were more active and that 
more burst events indicative of foraging 
occurred during the evening and night 
than during the day. Smalltooth sawfish 
were also most active at depths <1 m 
and during low tides. The locations of 
individuals derived from acoustic mon¬ 
itoring techniques indicate that they 
were less active while in mangrove creek 
habitats and were more active and more 
likely to engage in burst activity in hab¬ 
itats within the main stem of the Peace 
River. This study is the first one to 
deploy ADLs on smalltooth sawfish, and 
results describe their fine-scale activity 
and behavior, clarifying patterns of hab¬ 
itat use by this endangered species in 
one of their few remaining nurseries. 
Manuscript submitted 19 March 2019. 
Manuscript accepted 7 November 2019. 
Fish. Bull. 117:348-359 (2019). 
Online publication date: 17 December 2019. 
doi: 10.7755/FB. 117.4.7 
The views and opinions expressed or 
implied in this article are those of the 
author (or authors) and do not necessarily 
reflect the position of the National 
Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA. 
Fishery Bulletin 
ft* established In 1881 
Spencer F. Baird 
First U S. Commissioner 
of Fisheries and founder 
of Fishery Bulletin 
Fine-scale behavior and habitat use 
of the endangered smalltooth sawfish 
(Pristis pectinata ): insights from accelerometry 
Karissa O. Lear (contact author ) 1,2 
Gregg R. Poulakis 3 
Rachel M. Scharer 3 
Adrian C. Gleiss 2 
Nicholas M. Whitney 1,4 
Email address for contact author: k.lear@murdoch.edu.au 
1 Behavioral Ecology and Physiology Program 
Mote Marine Laboratory 
1600 Ken Thompson Parkway 
Sarasota, Florida 34236 
2 Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems 
Harry Butler Institute 
Murdoch University 
90 South Street 
Murdoch, Western Australia 6150, Australia 
3 Charlotte Harbor Field Laboratory 
Fish and Wildlife Research Institute 
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 
Commission 
585 Prineville Street 
Port Charlotte, Florida 33954 
4 Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life 
New England Aquarium 
1 Central Wharf 
Boston, Massachusetts 02110 
Sawfish species compose what is consid¬ 
ered one of the most threatened groups 
of chondrichthyans worldwide, with all 
5 species listed as endangered or criti¬ 
cally endangered by the International 
Union for the Conservation of Nature 
(IUCN) (Dulvy et al., 2014, 2016). The 
smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) 
is a coastal elasmobranch that inhabits 
estuaries and nearshore environments 
in the western Atlantic Ocean and Gulf 
of Mexico. Once common in the United 
States from Texas to North Carolina 
(Bigelow and Schroeder, 1953), this 
species is now restricted to less than 
20% of its former range (Dulvy et al., 
2016). Like that of other sawfish species, 
the decline in this population can largely 
be attributed to mortality from bycatch 
because their rostrum is easily entan¬ 
gled in fishing gear. Declines in pop¬ 
ulations of sawfish species have also 
been partially attributed to habitat 
destruction (Dulvy et al., 2016). In 2003, 
the smalltooth sawfish was federally 
protected and listed as endangered 
under the U.S. Endangered Species Act 
(Federal Register, 2003), and this species 
is listed as critically endangered on the 
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 
(Carlson et al., 2013). 
Although there is widespread concern 
regarding the protection and rebuilding 
of populations of smalltooth sawfish, lit¬ 
tle is known about their behavior and 
activity patterns. Previous studies have 
determined that smalltooth sawfish use 
the lower reaches of rivers, estuaries, 
and coastal bays as nurseries for about 
the first 3 years of life (Scharer et al., 
2012). This species is particularly vul¬ 
nerable to anthropogenic factors during 
this part of the juvenile stage, given that 
most of their known nurseries are sur¬ 
rounded by developed areas or subject to 
multiple fisheries (Norton et al., 2012). 
As a result, interactions with humans 
or recreational fishing gear are common 
(Seitz and Poulakis, 2006), and habi¬ 
tat destruction, pollution, and coastal 
