Fishing effects on diversity, size and community structure of the benthic invertebrate and fish megafauna on the Bay of Biscay coast of France

Blanchard, Gérard; Le-Loc’h, François; Hily, Christian; Boucher, Jean

doi:10.3354/meps280249

Cited by 85 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Within the Mediterranean Sea Gristina et al (2006) also found that heavily fished areas showed significantly lower Δ* and Δ+ values than areas of no or low fishing pressure. On the other hand, Blanchard et al (2004) found no difference between these indices in strongly versus moderately exploited areas of the Bay of Biscay. Again, conflicting results suggest that further research is needed on the responses of these indices to fishing.…”

Section: Comparison Between the Cimr And Fished Areasmentioning

confidence: 64%

Long-term and spillover effects of a marine protected area on an exploited fish community

Stobart

Warwick²,

Gonzalez³

et al. 2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

140

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ABSTRACT:We assessed the development of the exploited fish community inside and around the Columbretes Islands Marine Reserve (CIMR), a marine protected area (MPA), 8 to 16 yr after fishing ceased in the reserve. Sampling was by annual lobster trammel net fishing, an experimental technique used inside the CIMR, and on-board commercial operations in adjacent fishing grounds. We examined trends in combined fish abundance and biomass (catch per unit effort), species richness and diversity, size structure, trophic level and species composition of the community. Our results showed the CIMR fish community continued to change throughout the study period as (1) abundance and biomass increased, (2) mean body size and trophic level increased and (3) species composition changed according to a linear model. Relative to nearby fished areas the CIMR fish community had (1) higher abundance and biomass, (2) lower species diversity and higher taxonomic distinctness, (3) larger relative body size and (4) no difference in mean trophic level. We found clear evidence of spillover of fish from the CIMR to the adjacent fishery as commercial fish yields at the MPA border (< 0.5 km from the boundary) increased continuously during the study period, despite being locally depleted due to fishing effort concentration (fishing the line). Furthermore, fish size and diversity at the border were intermediate between the CIMR and other fished zones, suggesting that this is a transitional zone influenced by this MPA. Our results show that changes in community abundance, biomass, size structure and species composition provide a clear and interpretable view of MPA recovery. Diversity indices are also useful; however, their interpretation is more difficult. We conclude that the creation of the CIMR has had a positive effect on the exploitable fish community and that there is evidence of exportation of biomass to the surrounding fishery. We highlight the advantage of using multiple community metrics to study changes in fish communities, yet recommend the need for caution when interpreting them.

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Section: Comparison Between the Cimr And Fished Areasmentioning

confidence: 64%

Long-term and spillover effects of a marine protected area on an exploited fish community

Stobart

Warwick²,

Gonzalez³

et al. 2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

140

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“…Not surprisingly, the abundance of small mobile deposit feeders and carnivores increased and large epibenthic sessile species decreased ). In the 2000s, comparison of locations exposed to different trawling frequencies gave similar results (Blanchard et al 2004). As trawling has been widespread for about 100 years in the Bay of Biscay, it is clear that the benthic community on the Grande Vasière was impacted in the early 1990s due to both a direct impact of trawling and a possible indirect impact mediated by a change in habitat suitability (Table 2).…”

Section: Offshore Benthosmentioning

confidence: 67%

Assessment of impacts from human activities on ecosystem components in the Bay of Biscay in the early 1990s

Lorance

Bertrand

Brind’Amour

et al. 2009

Aquat. Living Resour.

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-The ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management and, more specifically, the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive require the assessment of the state and dynamics of an ecosystem in order to determine suitable management strategies. This paper takes an analytical approach to assess the state of the Bay of Biscay ecosystem in the early 1990s, chosen as a period of reference because key monitoring data series have been collected since then. To assess the state of the ecosystem, the pressures exerted by six broad categories of human activities were examined. A literature review of the ecosystem components was made and a component tree was tailored according to data availability. Data rich components were subdivided into subcomponents for their assessment while data poor components were assessed at an aggregated level. The component tree of the ecosystem comprised six main branches, four of which further divided into sub-components. In total, assessments were carried out at the level of 19 components. For four of these (fished species, sensitive fish species, marine mammals and turtles) the overall assessments were made combining the status of individual species. Impact from human activities were categorised as (i) "widespread" over the whole Bay of Biscay or "local" and (ii) "possible" when they could be logically expected or "documented" when they were reported in the literature. Fishing appeared to be the only activity exerting widespread documented impacts on several ecosystem components. Terrestrial activities had some possible and documented widespread impacts. With the exception of marine transport impacting seabirds at the regional scale through oil pollution, other activities had only local impacts, mostly nearshore. The reference state in the early 1990s, suggests that continuation of monitoring of vertebrates as well as estuarine and coastal habitats must be central to the monitoring programme and management strategies to be set in the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Additional monitoring is also required for benthos, substrate and micro-organisms. Key words:Reference state / Ecosystem-based management / Human pressure / Inventory / Atlantic Ocean Résumé -L'approche écosystémique de la gestion des pêches et, plus récemment, la Directive-cadre de l'Union Européenne « Stratégie pour le milieu marin », requièrent l'évaluation de l'état et de la dynamique d'un écosystème afin de définir des stratégies de gestion adéquate. Cet article adopte une approche analytique pour évaluer l'état de l'écosystème du golfe de Gascogne au début des années 1990, période de référence choisie parce que des séries temporelles de données de surveillance existent depuis lors. Pour évaluer l'état de l'écosystème au début des années 1990, les pressions exercées par six grandes catégories d'activités humaines ont été examinées. Une revue bibliographique des composantes de l'écosystème est faite et un arbre des composantes est défini selon les données disponibles. Les composantes riches en don...

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“…levelling habitat structure along with species loss, see Thrush et al, 2001;Thrush and Dayton, 2002), on community size spectra, trophic positions and derived energy flow patterns (Hiddink et al, 2006a;Jennings et al, 2001bJennings et al, , 2002a, as well as on benthic community functioning as indicated by biological trait composition (e.g. Blanchard et al, 2004;Tillin et al, 2006). Previous studies of trawling effects on trophic structure suffered from methodological problems: they either compared subsystems only, such as fish communities (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trophic look at soft-bottom communities — Short-term effects of trawling cessation on benthos

Dannheim

Brey

Schröder

et al. 2014

Journal of Sea Research

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The trophic structure of the German Bight soft-bottom benthic community was evaluated for potential changes after cessation of bottom trawling. Species were collected with van-Veen grabs and beam trawls. Trophic position (i.e. nitrogen stable isotope ratios, δ 15 N) and energy flow (i.e. species metabolism approximated by body mass scaled abundance) of dominant species were compared in trawled areas and an area protected from fisheries for 14 months in order to detect trawling cessation effects by trophic characteristics. At the community level, energy flow was lower in the protected area, but we were unable to detect significant changes in trophic position. At the species level energy flow in the protected area was lower for predating/scavenging species but higher for interface feeders. Species trophic positions of small predators/scavengers were lower and of deposit feeders higher in the protected area. Major reasons for trophic changes after trawling cessation may be the absence of artificial and additional food sources from trawling likely to attract predators and scavengers, and the absence of physical sediment disturbance impacting settlement/survival of less mobile species and causing a gradual shift in food availability and quality. Our results provide evidence that species or community energy flow is a good indicator to detect trawling induced energy-flow alterations in the benthic system, and that in particular species trophic properties are suitable to capture subtle and short-term changes in the benthos following trawling cessation.

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Fishing effects on diversity, size and community structure of the benthic invertebrate and fish megafauna on the Bay of Biscay coast of France

Cited by 85 publications

References 38 publications

Long-term and spillover effects of a marine protected area on an exploited fish community

Long-term and spillover effects of a marine protected area on an exploited fish community

Assessment of impacts from human activities on ecosystem components in the Bay of Biscay in the early 1990s

Trophic look at soft-bottom communities — Short-term effects of trawling cessation on benthos

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