Seasonal movements of American lobsters in southern Gulf of Maine coastal waters: patterns, environmental triggers, and implications for larval release

Abstract

American lobsters Homarus americanus are known to move offshore during the fallto-winter transition and inshore, into shallower, warmer water in the spring and summer. To determine whether all types of lobsters in New Hampshire coastal waters exhibit this movement pattern, we fitted 45 lobsters (ovigerous and non-ovigerous females, and males) with ultrasonic transmitters and tracked their movements over 3 successive seasons from 2006 to 2009. The major goals of this study were to determine (1) if ovigerous females express different seasonal movement patterns than males or non-ovigerous females;