Southern Flounder: Major Milestones and Remaining Knowledge Gaps in Their Biology, Ecology, and Fishery Management

Abstract

Southern flounder are an iconic coastal finfish through the Southeast U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Southern flounder spend the early part of their lives in coastal and estuarine habitats, later moving offshore to spawn. Several decades of research have provided much clarity to the biology, life history, and aquaculture aspects of southern flounder—this information is summarized and reviewed in this study. Despite substantial improvement in understanding the species, major questions remain about their recruitment, offshore behaviors, captive rearing, and management. Recently, southern flounder have also been in focus because of substantial synchronous population declines throughout their range with specific concerns that recruitment failure and possibly climate change may be implicated. Management of southern flounder has thus far taken place within individual states, but coming into focus is the possibility that larger coastwide management approaches may need to be considered due to both the migratory nature of the species and the possibility of population stressors acting at regional scales. Many states have already begun aquaculture and enhancement efforts, with an eye toward supplementing wild populations. Large group efforts, like the symposium that led to this study, will likely be needed to tackle the complex challenges confronting southern flounder.

Keywords:

• Southern flounder
• life history
• movement
• migration
• aquaculture
• fishery

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Steve VanderKooy, Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, as initiator and rapport of the Southern Flounder Symposium, which took place in Baton Rouge Louisiana in March 2022. Additionally, we thank all the Flounder Symposium participants who were not co-authors on this document, but who contributed to the content of numerous discussions that have been included in this document.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Data availability statement

No new data were collected for this work. Any data described herein should be traced back to the reference.

Additional information

Funding

This article does not report any new research, and as such, any funding associated with work described herein would be associated with the original article or report. Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission funded the March 2022 symposium that served as a catalyst for this article; however, no direct funds were used in support of this work.