scholarly journals Harvesting juveniles of blackspot sea bream (Pagellus bogaraveo) in the Azores (Northeast Atlantic): biological implications, management, and life cycle considerations

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (9) ◽  
pp. 2448-2456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mário Pinho ◽  
Hugo Diogo ◽  
Joana Carvalho ◽  
João Gil Pereira

Abstract Blackspot sea bream (Pagellus bogaraveo) is the most important economical resource of Azorean fisheries. Juveniles (age 0 and 1) were detected along island coastlines in nursery grounds that sheltered individuals of up to 13 cm (fork length). Juveniles occurred in coastal areas in all seasons, but higher catch per unit efforts occurred during summer. Larger individuals tended to be caught on the shelves and slopes of the islands and seamounts by the demersal, mixed hook, and line fisheries. Juveniles were exclusively found at inshore areas, while spawners were distributed over offshore areas (islands shelf/slope and seamounts), suggesting an inter-connected cycle of recruitment in coastal areas and ontogenetic migration of juveniles from inshore to offshore areas, while eggs and larvae drift in the opposite direction. Juveniles were found to be targeted by three types of fisheries, amounting to cumulative annual catches of ∼36 t. Shore angling was the most important fishing method, followed by bait fishing for tuna and the coastal pelagic live-bait fishery. Fishery managers have enforced several measures to protect juveniles, although our results indicate that effective interdiction of juvenile catch would provide a long-term increase of 15 and 8% in spawning-stock biomass and catch, respectively, as well as ∼13% increase in the value of landings. Although this measure could improve the protection of a species in an advanced state of overexploitation, our results showed that a decrease in fishing effort would be necessary to achieve sustainability of the stock.

Author(s):  
B. Draganik ◽  
S. Ivanow ◽  
Maciej Tomczak ◽  
B. Maksimov ◽  
I. Psuty-Lipska

Status of exploited Baltic flounder stocks in the southern Baltic area (ICES SD 26)Flounder is the target of directed fisheries in coastal waters and is a bycatch of cod fishing. Flounder were fished in the Baltic region ICES Subdivision 26 (SD 26) by Polish and Soviet fleets until 1991. Since that time political and economic changes have altered the exploitation structure of that area, leading to increased fishing effort and flounder catches. This report, which is based on Polish, Russian and Lithuanian data, presents a review of long term changes in flounder fisheries in SD 26, and describes the current status of flounder exploitation there. The eXtended Survival Analysis (XSA) method was used to assess the stock. The results indicate that the flounder stock in SD 26 is in good condition and that the spawning stock biomass (SSB) is at a consistently high level. However, the estimated mean fishing mortality (F


Author(s):  
Thomas Stamp ◽  
David Clarke ◽  
Shaun Plenty ◽  
Tim Robbins ◽  
James E Stewart ◽  
...  

Abstract The European bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) support high value commercial and recreational fisheries, however the Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB) of the northern Atlantic stock (ICES divisions 4.b–c, 7.a, and 7.d–h) has rapidly declined to an unsustainable level. The decline in SSB has been attributed to high fishing pressure combined with poor recruitment. By tracking juvenile fish their spatial ecology can be identified, and appropriate fisheries management policies designed to boost recruitment can be implemented. Using acoustic telemetry 146 sub-adult European bass (25.2–60 cm fork length) were tracked for up to 370 d across three sites in the southwest of the UK. Tagged fish were detected 2 724 548 times (Range: 166–106 393 detections per fish). Linear modelling estimated tagged fish were resident within 2.4–20.1 km of the site where they were first caught for 42.9–75.5% of the year. Some fish were however resident throughout summer and winter. Individual fish were also tracked moving up to 317 km to other coastal sites, 81% of which returned to their original capture site. Fisheries management should account for the high site fidelity displayed by juveniles and sub-adults of this species and coastal nursery sites should be considered essential habitat.


Author(s):  
Issam H. Al-Rasady ◽  
Anesh Govender

The Present study assessed the fishery state of longnose trevally (Carangoides chrysophrys) in the North West Arabian Sea. Key population parameters were estimated, and yield and spawning stock biomass per recruit analyses were conducted. The equation presented by Alagaraja (1984) for estimating natural mortality resulted in M = 0.29 year-1 and lead to the best estimate of longevity. Hence this value was used in the yield and spawning stock biomass per recruit analyses. The total mortality (Z) was estimated as 0.39 year-1, based on a catch curve analysis. Length-at- and age-at-50% captures were 38.21cm and 4 years respectively. The yield and spawning biomass per recruit analyses indicate that the current fishing mortality rate (Fcurr) was lower than the fishing mortality corresponding to the maximum yield per recruit (Fmax) and was also higher than the target reference point (F0.1) , suggesting that overfishing, currently, does not occur. However, any increase in the fishing effort in the future may lead to overfishing. 


2009 ◽  
Vol 66 (10) ◽  
pp. 2272-2277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah B. M. Kraak ◽  
Niels Daan ◽  
Martin A. Pastoors

Abstract Kraak, S. B. M., Daan, N., and Pastoors, M. A. 2009. Biased stock assessment when using multiple, hardly overlapping, tuning series if fishing trends vary spatially. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 2272–2277. Fishing-effort distributions are subject to change, for autonomous reasons and in response to management regulations. Ignoring such changes in a stock-assessment procedure may lead to a biased perception. We simulated a stock distributed over two regions with inter-regional migration and different trends in exploitation and tested the performance of extended survivors analysis (XSA) and a statistical catch-at-age model in terms of bias, when spatially restricted tuning series were applied. If we used a single tuning index that covered only the more heavily fished region, estimates of fishing mortality and spawning-stock biomass were seriously biased. If two tuning series each exclusively covering one region were used (without overlap but together covering the whole area), estimates were also biased. Surprisingly, a moderate degree of overlap of spatial coverage of the two tuning indices was sufficient to reduce bias of the XSA assessment substantially. However, performance was best when one tuning series covered the entire stock area.


2013 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnaud Grüss ◽  
David M. Kaplan ◽  
Jan Robinson

Abstract Many coral reef fish species form predictable, transient spawning aggregations. Many aggregations are overfished, making them a target for spatial management. Here, we develop a per-recruit model to evaluate the performance of no-take marine reserves protecting transient spawning aggregations. The model consists of only 14 demographic and exploitation-related parameters. We applied the model to a protogynous grouper and a gonochoristic rabbitfish from Seychelles and tested six scenarios regarding the extent of protected areas, the level of fish spawning-site fidelity, and fishing effort redistribution post reserve implementation. Spawning aggregation reserves improve spawning-stock biomass-per-recruit and reduce the sex ratio bias in protogynous populations for all scenarios examined. However, these benefits are often small and vary among the different scenarios and as a function of sexual ontogeny. In all scenarios, increases in yield-per-recruit do not occur or are negligible. The long-term yield increases due to spawning aggregation reserves may still occur, but only if spawning-stock biomass recovery results in a recruitment subsidy. Given these limited benefits, the value of no-take reserves must be weighed against those of other management options, such as fishing effort reduction and seasonal fishery closures. The latter is particularly appropriate when spawning and non-spawning areas overlap in space.


2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S Holland ◽  
Jean-Jacques Maguire

Age-structured models are used to calculate catches and revenues of the principal stocks in the northeast multispecies groundfish fishery over the 1982–1997 period assuming alternative control rules on fishing effort had been employed. Various static levels of nominal effort are compared with controls that maintain fishing mortality below overfishing thresholds for all stocks. An unambiguous result from this analysis is that substantial reductions in fishing effort would have increased the value of the fishery even if resulting increases in spawning stock biomass (SSB) had not increased recruitment. Simple controls on nominal effort designed to maximize revenues would have provided nearly equivalent revenues to those achieved by maintaining fishing mortality for each stock at its individual maximum sustainable yield (FMSY) but would have led to overfishing of some stocks. Without the ability to tune the relative catches across stocks, strict controls on effort designed to prevent overfishing on individual stocks would likely have resulted in significantly lower and more variable revenues. Achieving SSB targets for three stocks would not have been possible given the observed recruitment.


2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (9) ◽  
pp. 2457-2468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaël Gras ◽  
Beatriz A. Roel ◽  
Franck Coppin ◽  
Eric Foucher ◽  
Jean-Paul Robin

Abstract The English Channel cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) is the most abundant cephalopod resource in the Northeast Atlantic and one of the three most valuable resources for English Channel fishers. Depletion methods and age-structured models have been used to assess the stock, though they have shown limitations related to the model assumptions and data demand. A two-stage biomass model is, therefore, proposed here using, as input data, four abundance indices derived from survey and commercial trawl data collected by Ifremer and Cefas. The model suggests great interannual variability in abundance during the 17 years of the period considered and a decreasing trend in recent years. Model results suggest that recruitment strength is independent of spawning–stock biomass, but appears to be influenced by environmental conditions such as sea surface temperature at the start of the life cycle. Trends in exploitation rate do not reveal evidence of overexploitation. Reference points are proposed and suggestions for management of the sustainable utilization of cuttlefish in the English Channel are advanced.


2002 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Apostolaki ◽  
E J Milner-Gulland ◽  
M K McAllister ◽  
G P Kirkwood

We present a model of the effects of a marine reserve on spawning stock biomass (SSB) and short- and long-term yield for a size-structured species that exhibits seasonal movements. The model considers the effects of protecting nursery and (or) spawning grounds under a range of fishing mortalities and fish mobility rates. We consider two extremes of effort redistribution following reserve establishment and analyze the effects of a reserve when the fishery targets either mature or immature fish. We apply the model to the Mediterranean hake (Merluccius merluccius) and show that a marine reserve could be highly beneficial for this species. We demonstrate benefits from reserves not just for overexploited stocks of low-mobility species, but also (to a lesser extent) for underexploited stocks and high-mobility species. Greatly increased resilience to overfishing is also found in the majority of cases. We show that a reserve provides benefits additional to those obtained from simple effort control. Benefits from reserves depend to a major extent on the amount of effort redistribution following reserve establishment and on fishing selectivity; hence, these factors should be key components of any evaluation of reserve effectiveness.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 1448-1456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Gårdmark ◽  
Örjan Östman ◽  
Anders Nielsen ◽  
Karl Lundström ◽  
Olle Karlsson ◽  
...  

Abstract Gårdmark, A., Östman, Ö., Nielsen, A., Lundström K., Karlsson O., Pönni, J., and Aho, T. 2012. Does predation by grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) affect Bothnian Sea herring stock estimates? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: . Mortality of small pelagic fish due to marine mammals is generally considered to be low compared with other sources of mortality. With recent recoveries of marine mammal predators worldwide, this may no longer hold. The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) population in the Bothnian Sea has increased fivefold since 1985. Its main prey, herring (Clupea harrengus), is a key species for fisheries in the region. Yet, current stock assessments assume constant natural mortality, leading to a risk of biased stock estimates with increasing predation and misleading analyses of herring population dynamics. We estimated grey seal predation from diet data and reanalysed herring spawning stock biomass (SSB) during 1973–2009. Accounting for predation increased the herring SSB 16% (maximum 19%), but this was within the confidence intervals when ignoring predation. Although mortality in older individuals was inflated when accounting for seal predation, this did not change the conclusions about drivers of herring dynamics. Accounting for grey seal predation is important for abundance estimates of old herring, but currently not for SSB estimates, given the great uncertainties in the standard assessment. The grey seal impact on Bothnian Sea herring will need to be reassessed if stock age composition, grey seal feeding preferences, or total stock development change.


1967 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Garrod

By reason of its geographical distribution, the Arcto-Norwegian cod (Gadus morhua) supports three distinct fisheries, two feeding fisheries in the Barents Sea and at Bear Island–Spitsbergen, and a spawning fishery off the Norway coast. In the past this diversity of fishing on the one stock has made it difficult to unify all the data to give an overall description of post-war changes in the stock. In this contribution three modifications of conventional procedures are introduced which enable this to be done. These are: (i) a system of weighting the catch per unit effort data from each fishery to a level of comparability; (ii) a more rigorous definition of the effective fishing effort on each age-group; (iii) a method of estimation of the effective fishing effort on partially recruited age-groups.Using these methods the analysis presents the effects of fishing on each fishery in the context of its effect on the total stock, and at the same time it indicates ways in which factors other than fishing may have influenced the apparent abundance of the stock. The treatment of the data is also used to derive estimates of spawning stock and recruitment of 3-year-old cod for subsequent analysis of stock–recruitment relationships.


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