Permit Research

We are making steady progress in permit research, but still lack information critical to strong permit conservation. When BTT started, there wasn't a single completed research project on permit. Now there have been several. We know that permit spawn in Florida over artificial reefs and reef promontories during full moons during summer months. Farther south, in Belize, permit spawn in all but a couple winter months. We also know that once the eggs hatch, permit larvae drift in the open ocean for 15 - 18 days before moving out of the water column to the bottom and settling onto sandy bottoms adjacent to sandy beaches. Extensive sampling of habitats in Florida and Belize revealed that juvenile permit require medium-energy sandy beaches. This gives resource managers valuable information for beach habitat protections. There is also information on growth rates of permit in the Florida Keys, but not from other locations in the Caribbean. Critical information needs for permit include: movement and migration patterns (how far do they travel), which is essential for defining mangement regions; what portion of a location's juvenile permit come from somewhere else; what are the harvest rates for permit (in Florida and elsewhere); what is the estimated population size for permit in Florida an elsewhere.

Ongoing Research

Costa Del Mar Permit Tagging Project

Summaries of Findings

Patterns of juvenile habitat use and seasonality of settlement by permit, Trachinotus falcatus.
Download PDF

Spatial patterns of estuarine habitat type use and temporal patterns in abundance of juvenile permit, Trachinotus falcatus, in Charlotte Harbor, Florida.
Download PDF