Estimation of ecological carrying capacity of small-scale fish in marine ranch of the Pearl River Estuary, China

Abstract

Small-scale marine fish are a critical part of the food chain and energy flow of the marine ecosystem. The ecological carrying capacity (ECC) is important to better understand the marine fishery ecosystems. However, few studies have focused on the ECC of small-scale marine fish species. This study proposed the estimation model of the ECC for small-scale fish species, and estimated the ECC of 18 small-scale fish species in the targeted sea areas (artificial reef area near Wanshan Island, WAR; non-artificial reef area near Wanshan Island, N- WAR; artificial reef area near Miaowan Island, MAR; non-artificial reef area near Miaowan Island, N- MAR; and control area near Wailingding Island, C-WLD) in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE), China. The result shows that the ECC of the 18 small-scale fish species in the marine ranch of the PRE is ranged from 85.92 t/km 2 to 551.33 t/km 2. In terms of magnitude: WAR > MAR > N- WAR > N- MAR > C-WLD, and their ECCs accounted for 50.68%, 16.89%, 13.74%, and 10.79% and 7.90% of the total ECC, respectively. These findings show that artificial reefs can improve the fishery resource carrying capacity and can therefore be beneficial both ecologically and economically.