Abstract
In the Philippines, very high fishing pressure coincides with the globally greatest number of shorefish species, yet no long-term fisheries data are available to explore species-level changes that may have occurred widely in the most species rich and vulnerable marine ecosystem, namely coral reefs. Through 2655 face-to-face interviews conducted between August 2012 and July 2014, we used fishers’ recall of past catch rates of reef-associated finfish to infer species disappearances from catches in five marine key biodiversity areas (Lanuza Bay, Danajon Bank, Verde Island Passage, Polillo Islands and Honda Bay). We modeled temporal trends in perceived catch per unit effort (CPUE) based on fishers’ reports of typical good days’ catches using Generalized Linear Mixed Modelling. Fifty-nine different finfish disappeared from catches between the 1950s and 2014; 42 fish were identified to species level, two to genus, seven to family and eight to local name only. Five species occurring at all sites with the greatest number of fishers reporting zero catches were the green bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), humphead wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus), African pompano (Alectis ciliaris), giant grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) and mangrove red snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus). Between the 1950s and 2014, the mean perceived CPUE of bumphead parrotfish declined by 88%, that of humphead wrasse by 82%, African pompano by 66%, giant grouper by 74% and mangrove red snapper by 64%. These declines were mainly associated with excess and uncontrolled fishing, fish life-history traits like maximum body size and socio-economic factors like access to market infrastructure and services, and overpopulation. The fishers’ knowledge is indicative of extirpations where evidence for these losses was otherwise lacking. Our models provide information as basis for area-based conservation and regional resource management particularly for the more vulnerable, once common, large, yet wide-ranging reef finfish species.
Highlights
Coral reefs occupy less than one percent of the marine area, but they are home to 25 percent of all known marine fish species [1,2,3]
Among the five most vulnerable species, the green bumphead parrotfish B. muricatum had the greatest proportion of fishers reporting no catches, the most fishers targeting it and the greatest decline in perceived catch per unit effort (CPUE)
A. ciliaris is categorized by IUCN as Least Concern [86], but it is extinct at two islands off Bohol (Philippines) [27], while L. argentimaculatus remains unassessed by IUCN (2015) yet it may have been extirpated in Naujan Lake National Park in Mindoro Oriental (Philippines) [87]
Summary
Coral reefs occupy less than one percent of the marine area, but they are home to 25 percent of all known marine fish species [1,2,3]. In the Philippines, part of the world’s most biodiverse marine environment [4, 5] and anthropogenically-threatened marine region [6], coral reefs support around 20% of total marine fisheries production [3, 7]. Fishery products provide 11.7% of total Filipino food consumption [8] and in 2010 5–6 million Filipinos depended directly on the fishing industry for livelihoods [9, 10]. More than one million ‘municipal’ fishers (vessels 3 gross tonnes, GT) exploit coral reefs and adjacent shallow marine ecosystems. This has led to habitat degradation and a halving of the potential Philippine coral-reef fishery production by the 1990s [7, 11]. In addition to high fishing pressure, other factors such as life-history traits of the species targeted and the socio-economic circumstances of the fishers have contributed to this poor state of the fisheries [15]
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