All About the Bass 2024 - Tom Stamp (University of Plymouth)

"All About the Bass" was a one day symposium on 8th July 2024 hosted by the University of Essex showcasing the latest in European sea bass science and providing a forum for scientists, anglers and policymakers to discuss ways that we could work together to improve bass monitoring and management (www.tinyurl.com/BassEvent). #BassConf

Tom's talk: Should I stay or should I go? Insights from tracking juvenile bass in coastal sites across the southwest UK

Estuaries and coastal bays which are highly adapted by humans and at the same time known to be important nursery grounds for European bass. In the UK, 34 sites are designated and protected as Bass Nursery Areas, yet our understanding of how and why European bass exploit inshore and coastal habitats is poor. Using acoustic telemetry we tracked 146 sub-adult European bass for 814 days across three designated Bass Nursery Sites. Tagged fish were detected more than 5 million times, staying very local to the nursery site where they were first caught. Individual fish, were however also tracked moving up to 317km to other coastal sites, however, 81% of these fish returned to their original nursery site. The results from our work have highlighted that while individuals can and do move over large distances, juvenile bass populations are generally very associated to specific locations. Since this initial study, the research group has expanded and branched into different species and using different types of tags. As part of this talk I will provide an overview of different tagging techniques we (and others) use and what stories they’ve told us.

Tom's Biography:
Dr Thomas Stamp is a Post Doctoral Research Associate in the School of Life Sciences at University of Plymouth. In collaboration with the Devon and Severn IFCA and Plymouth university, Thomas completed his PhD in 2020 on European bass movements and habitat use within estuaries. This work ranged from: yomping across miles of muddy saltmarsh with nets a fyke net, to tracking the movements of juvenile fish using acoustic telemetry. Since then, Tom has helped co-develop one of Europe’s largest fish tracking surveys and continues to work on European bass (among other species), to answer applied fisheries management questions at both regional and international scales.