Previous studies have found that groupers shift to deeper
depths as they grow (Derbal & Kara, 1995). At the study area,
larger individuals of E. marginatus and M. acutirostris (400-
600 mm SL) were frequently in waters up to 5 m depth, but
only in protected sites where fishing was forbidden (pers.
obs.). Thus, there is not necessarily a shift in groupers toward
deeper waters with increasing size, but rather an enlargement
of their bathymetric range, at least for undisturbed
populations (La Mesa et al., 2002), which explains this divergence
between Derbal & Kara (1995) and the present study.