Abstract
The climate-induced changes in marine fishery resources in South Korea have been a big concern over the last decades. The climate regime shift has led to not only a change in the dominant fishery resources, but also a decline in fishery landings in several species. The habitat suitability index (HSI) has been widely used to detect and forecast fishing ground formation. In this study, the catch data of the Todarodes pacificus (Japanese Common Squid) and satellite-derived environmental parameters were used to estimate the HSI for the T. pacificus around South Korea. More than 80% of the total catch was found in regions with a sea surface temperature (SST) of 14.91–27.26 °C, sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) of 0.05–0.20 m, chlorophyll-a of 0.32–1.35 mg m−3, and primary production of 480.41–850.18 mg C m−2 d−1. Based on these results, the HSI model for T. pacificus was derived. A strong positive relationship (R2 = 0.9260) was found between the HSI and the fishery landings. The climatological monthly mean HSI from 2002 to 2016 showed several hotspots, coinciding with the spawning and feeding grounds of T. pacificus. This outcome implies that our estimated HSI can yield a reliable prediction of the fishing ground for T. pacificus around South Korea. Furthermore, the approach with the simple HSI model used in this study can be applied elsewhere, and will help us to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of fishery resources.
Highlights
Todarodes pacificus (Japanese Common Squid) is a commercially important fish species in the South Korea, and is widely distributed around the Korean Peninsula
T. pacificus is known as a migratory species which usually migrates to the Yellow Sea and the East/Japan Sea for feeding and moves back to the East China Sea for spawning [2,3,4,5]
Many previous studies reported that the feeding grounds of T. pacificus in Korean waters are located mainly in the Yellow Sea and the East/Japan Sea for ‘winter spawners’ and ‘autumn spawners’, respectively [2,3,4,5]
Summary
Todarodes pacificus (Japanese Common Squid) is a commercially important fish species in the South Korea, and is widely distributed around the Korean Peninsula. The spawning ground of both groups are distributed around the South Sea and the East China Sea, their feeding grounds are distributed differently [2,3,4,5]. Many previous studies reported that the feeding grounds of T. pacificus in Korean waters are located mainly in the Yellow Sea and the East/Japan Sea for ‘winter spawners’ and ‘autumn spawners’, respectively [2,3,4,5]. The zooplankton is an important food source for the small pelagic fishes chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration and primary production will have an indirect relationship with the distribution of T. pacificus, they will be useful indicator of habitat distribution of the T. pacificus
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