The lack of effective governance is a major concern in small-scale fisheries. The implementation of governance that encompasses the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and ecological) is still a worldwide challenge. We examined nine stalked barnacle fisheries (Pollicipes pollicipes) across Southwest Europe to better understand the relationship between governance elements and sustainability. Our results show that nested spatial scales of management, the access structure, co-management, and fisher’s participation in monitoring and surveillance promote sustainability. However, it is not the mere presence of these elements but their level of implementation that drives sustainability. Efforts should be placed in the accomplishment of a minimum combination of local scales of management, access rights through individual quotas, instructive-consultative co-management and functional participation. Surpassing this threshold in future governance structures will start to adequately promote social, economic and ecologically sustainability in small-scale fisheries.

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Environmental variables are known to regulate the reproductive output of marine intertidal organisms, but typically these variables are studied as averages and interpreted at a macroscale level. Along 200 km of coast in NW Iberia, great variability in the reproductive activity of the stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes was found among 7 different locations. We found the highest number of broods reported to date in this species and suggest a more realistic method of predicting reproductive success that takes into account sea surface temperature (SST). At these same locations, we studied 13 yr of SST, thermal upwelling index (UI), ground skin temperature and chlorophyll a (chl a) satellite data, using spectral analyses to partition their temporal variability over ecologically relevant time scales. SST played the most relevant role as an environmental driver, explaining 48% of the variability in the proportion of breeding individuals (BI), but the SST-BI goodness-of-fit decreased sharply northwards. Variance-partitioning analyses indicated that cycles between 20 and 100 d in SST and UI were more important southwards, which is consistent with a latitudinal gradient in upwelling intensity and frequency along this coast. Thus, we found better biophysical coupling towards the south, where shorter fluctuation time scales in SST match the gonadal development period (around 1 mo). This pattern may explain the spatial variability in the strength of association between key environmental variables and the reproductive cycle of coastal species along their distribution range.

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