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A seascape-scale habitat model to support management of fishing impacts on benthic ecosystems



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service)
  • Description:
    Minimizing fishing impacts on seafloor ecosystems is a growing focus of ocean management; however, few quantitative tools exist to guide seascape-scale habitat management. To meet these needs, we developed a model to assess benthic ecosystem impacts from fishing gear contact. The habitat impacts model is cast in discrete time and can accommodate overlapping fisheries as well as incorporate gear-specific contact dynamics. We implemented the model in the North Pacific using fishing data from 2003 to 2017, estimating that habitat in 3.1% of the 1.2 million km2study area was disturbed at the end of the simulation period. A marked decline in habitat disturbance was evident since 2010, attributable to a single regulatory gear change that lifted trawl gear components off the seafloor. Running scenarios without these gear modifications showed these policies might have contributed to a 24% reduction in habitat disturbance since their implementation. Ultimately, model outputs provide direct estimates of the spatial and temporal trends of habitat effects from fishing — a key component of regulatory policies for many of the world’s fisheries.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 76(10), 1836-1844
  • DOI:
  • ISSN:
    0706-652X ; 1205-7533
  • Format:
    PDF
  • Publisher:
    Canadian Science Publishing
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Rights Information:
    Other
  • Compliance:
    Library
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:9173924b48939d19bbe132f1c752ac17be822b0d59bb666c5f8bdc0f5b8a5817
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1.11 MB ]
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