Marine protected areas are increasingly used as a research and a management tool for conservation of biodiversity and to achieve a sustainable fishery activity (4). The Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus has a high commercial value in European waters, though their stocks have significantly diminished over the last decade. This burrowing species has strict endo-benthic life habit digging and inhabiting complex tunnel systems, that act a centre for strong territorial behaviour (1). In October 2017, a no-take marine area was stablished in the Northwestern Mediterranean at 350-400 m depth with the objective of recovering the stocks of this crustacean. However, it is unknown whether the protected area size matches the scale of movement of Norway lobsters, which is crucial to assess its effectiveness (2-3). In this study, for first time, we investigated the diel activity and home range of electronic-tagged Norway lobsters in the no-take areas to examine their spatiotemporal movement patterns in the deep-sea. In total, 33 individuals were collected with creels and, subsequently, they were tagged with miniaturized acoustic transmitters (0.7 g of weight in water). All tagged lobsters were released inside an area delimited by four acoustic hydrophones which collected tag detections from all individuals (i.e. emission detections occurred only during emergence from burrows) during five months. The recorded time series of detections were used to describe burrow emergence patterns and spatial movements (by signal triangulation). Behaviour interactions were examined by analysing the space overlap/segregation of the core foraging area. The results revealed the strong territoriality and the conduct of diel behaviour of the Norway lobster, and that the protected area size is adequate to recuperate their stocks as their home range fits inside the area

M.V. was supported by a Phd-contract of the FPU program (FPU18/01775, Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain). J.N. was supported by the Spanish National Program Ramon y Cajal (RYC-2015-17809). This study is a contribution to the project RESNEP (CTM2017-82991-C2-1-R, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain)

Workshop sobre Reservas Marinas - Workshop on Marine Reserves (REMAR 2020), 1-3 July 2020, Barcelona.-- 2 pages

Peer reviewed