Effect of nursery habitat degradation on flatfish population: Application to Solea solea in the Eastern Channel (Western Europe)

Abstract

Estuaries and coastal waters are essential nursery habitats for many marine species, and especially for flatfishes. Thus, investigating how anthropogenic disturbances affect the quality of these habitats is of major importance to understand their consequences on the population renewal of marine species.The aim of the present study was to analyse the effects of estuarine habitat degradation on the population of the common sole in the Eastern Channel, a key species in the fish community and fisheries in this area. We especially focused on the drastic drop in the surface area and on the low water quality of the Seine estuary, the main river of the Eastern Channel.

Predicting estuarine use patterns of juvenile fish with Generalized Linear Models

“…Human impacts have depleted important species, seagrass and wetland habitat, degraded water quality and accelerated species invasions (Lotze et al, 2006). Nursery function may be affected in multiple ways by a multitude of anthropogenic sources of pressures in estuaries (Vasconcelos et al, 2007;Courrat et al, 2009;Rochette et al, 2010) with possible consequences at a large scale, as estuaries and coastal areas are ecologically connected and contribute to broad scale population replenishment (Beck et al, 2001;Fodrie and Levin, 2008;van de Wolfshaar et al, 2011). Future global tendencies include significant habitat loss and alteration, excessive nutrients and sewage, increasingly significant overfishing, ever problematic chemical contamination and emerging freshwater diversions (Kennish, 2002).…”

Ecology and welfare of aquatic animals in wild capture fisheries

“…Usually this involves straightening and stabilization of river banks with rocks or concrete, dredging of sediments, use of levee banks for flood mitigation and removal of snags and woody debris in order to improve navigability (Boesch 2006;Makiguchi et al 2008). All of these processes decrease access of aquatic animals to suitable living, spawning and nursery habitat, resulting in significant loss of recruitment capacity and biodiversity (Mauney and Harp 1979;Rochette et al 2010), both of which must be considered welfare concerns under the nature-based definition.…”

“…Overfishing has either followed on from habitat degradation and pollution (Thorne and Thomas 2008), or both processes have proceeded simultaneously (Boesch et al 2001), and thus all have contributed to degradation of the aquatic environment. Indeed, habitat degradation and pollution are primarily responsible for significant ongoing reductions in fisheries productivity in many parts of the world where pollution and/or human development has occurred (Thorne and Thomas 2008;Rochette et al 2010). Fishing may not be the primary agent contributing to reductions in fish stocks or environmental degradation in many instances (Rochette et al 2010), but its management is still a critical component of ecosystem based management which is being increasingly adopted in our attempts to protect and restore aquatic animal populations in degraded systems (Boesch 2006;Thorne and Thomas 2008).…”

Shoreline development and degradation of coastal fish reproduction habitats

“…In particular, coastal development affects over 80 % of the coastline in many regions of Europe, thus, being responsible for much of the observed habitat degradation and loss (Airoldi and Beck 2007). For species dependent on specific habitats during some part of their life-cycle, habitat degradation may have negative population effects (e.g., Rochette et al 2009). Even small local disturbances, e.g., construction of a jetty or dredging a channel for recreational boating, can have long-term negative effects on vulnerable coastal habitats (Jordan et al 2008).…”