Characterizing Industrial and Artisanal Fishing Vessel Catch Composition Using Environmental DNA and Satellite-Based Tracking Data.

Demian A Willette,Gabriela Navarrete-Forero,Giovanna Sotil,Apollo Marco D Lizano,Leonardo Gonzalez-Smith,Zachary Gold

doi:10.3390/foods10061425

Abstract

The decline in wild-caught fisheries paired with increasing global seafood demand is pushing the need for seafood sustainability to the forefront of national and regional priorities. Validation of species identity is a crucial early step, yet conventional monitoring and surveillance tools are limited in their effectiveness because they are extremely time-consuming and require expertise in fish identification. DNA barcoding methods are a versatile tool for the genetic monitoring of wildlife products; however, they are also limited by requiring individual tissue samples from target specimens which may not always be possible given the speed and scale of seafood operations. To circumvent the need to individually sample organisms, we pilot an approach that uses forensic environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding to profile fish species composition from the meltwater in fish holds on industrial and artisanal fishing vessels in Ecuador. Fish identified genetically as present were compared to target species reported by each vessel’s crew. Additionally, we contrasted the geographic range of identified species against the satellite-based fishing route data of industrial vessels to determine if identified species could be reasonably expected in the catch.

Highlights

Global per capita consumption of seafood exceeds 20 kg [1], with rising demand driving substantial increases in fisheries exports from developing nations [2]
A total of 2,588,151 12S paired-end sequencing reads were generated from the meltwater samples from the three industrial and three artisanal fishing vessels
We note that similar environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding approaches could be used for a broad suite of fisheries targets, including cryptic and hard-to-identify species, as well as invertebrate targets, employing different genetic markers tailored for specific targets. Despite these minor limitations observed here, our results demonstrate that even “universal” teleost primer sets can provide important traceability information

Summary

Introduction

Global per capita consumption of seafood exceeds 20 kg [1], with rising demand driving substantial increases in fisheries exports from developing nations [2]. The decline in wild-caught fisheries continues, and is pushing the need for improved management for long-term sustainability to the forefront of national and regional priorities. One major threat to sustainable wild-caught stocks is illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. States Seafood Import Monitoring Program are setting the framework for action on IUU fishing [4,5,6,7], namely the aim to develop personnel expertise and tools in accurate and cost-effective monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS) of fisheries. The industrial fishing fleet includes approximately 700 vessels using purse seine nets and longlines [9,10]

Methods

Results

Conclusion