Abstract
Assessing patterns of fisheries activity at a scale related to resource exploitation has received particular attention in recent times. However, acquiring data about the distribution and spatiotemporal allocation of catch and fishing effort in small scale benthic fisheries remains challenging. Here, we used GIS-based spatio-statistical models to investigate the footprint of commercial diving events on blacklip abalone (Haliotis rubra) stocks along the south-west coast of Victoria, Australia from 2008 to 2011. Using abalone catch data matched with GPS location we found catch per unit of fishing effort (CPUE) was not uniformly spatially and temporally distributed across the study area. Spatial autocorrelation and hotspot analysis revealed significant spatiotemporal clusters of CPUE (with distance thresholds of 100’s of meters) among years, indicating the presence of CPUE hotspots focused on specific reefs. Cumulative hotspot maps indicated that certain reef complexes were consistently targeted across years but with varying intensity, however often a relatively small proportion of the full reef extent was targeted. Integrating CPUE with remotely-sensed light detection and ranging (LiDAR) derived bathymetry data using generalized additive mixed model corroborated that fishing pressure primarily coincided with shallow, rugose and complex components of reef structures. This study demonstrates that a geospatial approach is efficient in detecting patterns and trends in commercial fishing effort and its association with seafloor characteristics.
Highlights
Fisheries provide a pivotal source of food and income; the sustainable maintenance of these limited renewable resources is critical to their longevity
Fishing effort data for blacklip abalone was captured by the Western Abalone Divers Association (WADA) as part of annual commercial quota licence agreement for reef zones designated by the Department of Environment and Primary Industries for state managed waters of Victoria
Geospatial approaches applied in this study demonstrated the spatiotemporal patterns and clusters in the distribution of catch per unit of fishing effort (CPUE) for the commercially important blacklip abalone
Summary
Fisheries provide a pivotal source of food and income; the sustainable maintenance of these limited renewable resources is critical to their longevity. Detailed information about the spatial and temporal footprint of fisheries (i.e. the intensity and spatiotemporal variability) is often lacking [1,2,3]. Vessel monitoring systems are PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0122995. Assessing Patterns in Fishing Effort of an Important Marine Mollusc Vessel monitoring systems are PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0122995 May 20, 2015
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