Can dynamite-blasted reefs recover? A novel, low-tech approach to stimulating natural recovery in fish and coral populations

Throughout Southeast Asia, blast fishing creates persistent rubble fields with low coral cover and depauperate fish communities. We stabilized a 20-year-old rubble field in a Marine Protected Area in the Philippines, using plastic mesh and rock piles in replicated 17.5m(2) plots, thereby increasing topographic complexity, fish habitat, and recruitment substrate surface area. Multivariate analysis revealed fish community shifts within the rehabilitated area from that characteristic of rubble fields to one similar to the adjacent healthy reef within three years, as measured by changes in fish abundance and body size. Coral recruitment and percent cover increased over time, with 63.5% recruit survivorship within plots, compared with 6% on rubble. Our low-cost approach created a stable substrate favoring natural recovery processes. Both rehabilitation and the elimination of poaching were integral to success, emphasizing the synergism between the two and the need to incorporate both when considering mitigation.     

Hog Daddy and the Walls of Steel: Catch Shares and Ecosystem Change in the New England Groundfishery

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration implemented market-based fishery management in the New England groundfishery as catch shares, controlling aggregate harvests through tradable annual catch quotas allocated to fishing groups called sectors. Policy supporters assert that resulting markets raise conservation incentives. In compliance with the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, species assessments permit catch shares to replace more spatially and temporally specific constraints on fishing gear, time, areas, and daily harvest limits. Qualitative evidence from field interviews and participant observation questions the efficacy of catch shares. Fishing industry members observe that increased presence of large trawl vessels in previously protected areas damages fish subpopulations and benthic habitat. Regulatory bioeconomic models fail to consider these lay observations. The consequent inability of quota markets to recognize the materiality of human–environment relationships at the spatiotemporal scales of fishing activity, and to internalize associated externalities, may have devastating consequences for the fishery.     

Using individual transferable quotas (ITQs) to achieve social policy objectives: A proposed intervention

ITQs offer environmental and economic benefits, including better conservation of a fish stock and greater profitability for fishers. With some limitations, they achieve fairly good alignment between the profit incentive and stewardship objectives. Nevertheless, critics have objected to ITQ schemes because of such factors as the “armchair fishing” phenomenon, unfairness to the public (the owner of the fish), economic and social damage to remote communities, and increased concentration within the fishery. Economists generally dismiss these as distributional issues rather than matters of efficiency or economics, but economic principles are clearly not the only factors that may require attention or action from a government or regulator. This paper proposes an intervention that addresses these concerns within the context of an ITQ scheme. The intervention does not reduce the permanence or values of ITQs, and therefore retains the benefits that ITQs are designed to deliver. Nevertheless, the intervention addresses the criticisms identified above. Modifications of the intervention may enable additional goals and benefits to be achieved as well.     

Incentivising selective fishing under a policy to ban discards; lessons from European and global fisheries

The reduction of discards in European fisheries has been identified as a specific objective of the reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy. To reduce the uncertainty in catch data and the socially unacceptable waste of resources that results from the disposal of catch at sea, a policy to ban discards has been proposed. Discard bans are currently implemented in Alaska, British Columbia, New Zealand, the Faroe Islands, Norway and Iceland. Experience from these countries highlights that a policy of mandatory landings can result in a reduction in discards, but relies upon a high level of surveillance or economic incentives to encourage fishers to land more of their catch. Discard bans will also not result in long term benefits to stocks unless total removals are reduced, through the avoidance of undersized, non-commercial or over quota catch. Experience shows that additional management measures are required to incentivise such a move towards more selective fishing. Success has resulted from the use of area closures and bycatch limits, with potential applications in EU fisheries. However, selective fishing will not be a panacea for the current state of European fisheries; discard bans and accompanying measures must be embedded in a wider management system that constrains fishing mortality to reasonable levels before sustainable exploitation can occur.     

Recreational fishing and boating: Are the determinants the same?

The research uses household survey data collected from 656 people in Townsville (adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia) within a hurdle model to investigate key factors influencing both the probability of participating and the frequency of (a) boating trips which involve fishing; (b) boating trips which do not involve fishing; and (c) land-based fishing trips. The findings suggest that there are differences in determinants, highlighting the importance of disaggregating the fishing/boating and boat/land-based experience (an uncommon practice in the literature) if wishing to obtain information for use in the design of monitoring programs, policy and/or for developing monitoring and enforcement strategies relating to fishing and boating.     

Identifying Lagrangian fronts with favourable fishery conditions

Lagrangian fronts (LFs) in the ocean are defined as boundaries between surface waters with strongly different Lagrangian properties. They can be accurately detected in a given velocity field by computing synoptic maps for displacements of synthetic tracers and other Lagrangian indicators. We use Pacific saury catch and location data for a number of commercial fishery seasons in the region of the northwest Pacific with one of the richest fishery in the world. It is shown statistically that the saury fishing grounds with maximal catches are not randomly distributed over the region but located mainly along the sharp LFs where productive cold waters of the Oyashio Current, warmer waters of the southern branch of the Soya Current, and waters of warm-core Kuroshio rings converge. Computation of those fronts in altimetric geostrophic velocity fields both in the years with the First and Second Oyashio Intrusions shows that in spite of different oceanographic conditions LF locations may serve as good indicators of potential fishing grounds. Possible biophysical reasons for saury aggregation near sharp LFs are discussed. We propose a mechanism for effective export of nutrient rich waters based on stretching of material lines in the vicinity of hyperbolic objects in the ocean. The developed method, based on identifying LFs in any velocity fields, is quite general and may be applied to find potential fishing grounds for the other pelagic fish.     

Organic matter preservation in the carbonate matrix of a recent microbial mat – Is there a ‘mat seal effect’?

Phototrophic mats (microbial mats with a phototrophic top layer) are complex systems in terms of microbial diversity, biogeochemical cycles and organic matter (OM) turnover. It has been proposed that these mats were a predominant life form in Proterozoic shallow water settings, prior to the emergence of bioturbating organisms in the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition. For most of the Precambrian, microbial mats were not only quantitative important carbon fixing systems, but also influenced the transfer and transformation of OM before it entered the geosphere. The profound alteration of compound inventories during transit through microbial mats, implying substantial consequences for OM preservation in the Proterozoic, was recently proposed as a “mat-seal effect” [Pawlowska et al. (2012) Geology 41, 103–106]. To obtain a better understanding of the early diagenetic fate of primary produced OM in microbial mats, we studied a recent calcifying mat from a hypersaline lake in Kiritimati, which showed in the deeper mat layers a maximum ¹⁴C_carbonate age of ∼1500 years. We particularly focused on OM entrapped in the carbonate matrix, because of the better potential of such biomineral-encapsulated OM to reach the geosphere before degradation (and remineralization). Our data indicate that selective preservation is important in phototrophic mats. While a diagenetic transformation of lipid fatty acids (FAs) was evident, their fatty acyl-derived hydrocarbon moieties were not introduced into protokerogen, which was instead mainly comprised of cyanobacterial and/or algal biomacromolecules. Our data support the proposed major impact of the “mat-seal effect” on OM turnover and preservation; i.e. the suppression of biosignatures derived from the upper mat layers, while signals of heterotrophic microbes thriving in deeper mat layers become preferentially preserved (e.g. high hopane/sterane ratios). This mechanism may have broad consequences for the interpretation of biomarkers from Proterozoic shelf environments, because biosignatures of phototrophic mat dwellers as well as planktonic signals may have become heavily biased by the production and turnover of OM in microbial mat systems.     

影响鸢乌贼手钓上钩率的因子探讨

根据印度洋西北部鸢乌贼(Symplectoteuthis oualaniensis)作业渔场的现场调查数据,分析了作业水深、作业时段、摄食等级和月相等因子对手钓上钩率的影响。统计表明,晚上、午夜和凌晨3个不同时段和不同作业水深对手钓上钩率均有显著性影响。3个时段中,其摄食等级呈先低后高再低的现象。午夜和凌晨,上钩率的变化趋势与摄食等级的变化趋势呈显著的负相关。在月相的影响下,离朔日三四天之前,手钓产量呈上升趋势;离望日五六天之前,手钓产量呈明显的下降趋势。     

北太平洋150°E-165 °E海域柔鱼重心渔场的年间变动

利用空间距离和灰色关联度分析方法对1995～2001年间北太平洋150°E—165°E柔鱼作业渔场的重心分布进行比较研究,1995～1997年8～10月份作业渔场的重心与1998～2001年存在着较大的差异,前者基本上在150°E—153°30E的42°30′N以南海域,而后者位于155°E-161°E的42°45′N以北海域。聚类结果表明,8月份作业渔场重心分为三类:1998～2001年为一类,1996～1997年为一类,而1995年为一类。9月份产量重心与作业渔船重心的聚类结果则有所不同,产量重心的聚类结果为四类,即1999～2001年为一类,1997、1996年为一类,1998年和1995年各为一类;而作业渔船重心的聚类结果则分为三类,即1999～2001年为一类,1995～1997年为一类,1998年为一类;10月份作业渔场重心分为三类;1998、2001和1999年为一类,1995～1997年为一类,2000年为一类。年间的渔场变化可能是由海洋环境条件所引起。灰色关联分析表明,产量重心与作业渔船重心存在一定的差异。8～10月份作业渔场重心的总体变化趋势为向东北偏东移动。     

汕尾明代“捷胜所城”初探

捷胜是粤东一座历史文化名城,也是汕尾市的新渔港；明初它就作为军事要塞纳入了国家海防体系。捷胜等卫所城的设立,对促进地方海洋文化的发展尤其是“卫城文化”的形成具有重要作用。在对地方史料仔细分析基础上,探讨了汕尾明代“捷胜所城”的尺寸、设立的时间、历史背景及作用,查明了明朝廷定名“捷胜”的时间：农历洪武二十八年(1395年)三月二十五日,指出“捷胜”一名寓有“捷报频传,保家卫国,抗‘倭’必胜”之义。