Sustainability of a tropical, multispecies, multigear, coral‐reef‐associated fishery system is efficiently inferred with the direct use of long‐term port biosampling length records and life‐history traits, US Virgin Islands

Abstract

Abstract The fisheries system of the US Virgin Islands (USVI) provided the opportunity to examine decision‐making and to advise comparable fisheries throughout the tropics; it is well studied, thoroughly managed, and small in economic impact. To assess (multilevel modelling), evaluate (historical baselines and comparison of size frequency distributions), and explain (regression) the fisheries status synoptically, indicators of life history, ecological, and fishery traits were applied to a 26 year long and 104 species large port biosampling database. The fishery consists of stable, truncated, and overfished populations of exclusively K‐selected fish species. In particular, 45 (46.9%) of 96 species show significant but not biologically meaningful trends in mean standardized length of fish caught during a period of 30 years. Yet, 93 (90.2%) of 103 species are subject to persistent growth and/or recruitment overfishing. Also, both biological and economic overfishing are positively, significantly, and largely related with the K‐selected nature of these species. The results are corroborated by available contextual studies that demonstrate in synthesis the buffering effect of fisheries management. This employs various monitoring, regulatory, and enhancement tools to face its major challenges of data collection and quality improvement, local and regional environmental degradation from multiple anthropogenic and natural stressors, and non‐compliance. Yet, there have been increasing trends in human population size, fishing effort, and total commercial landings, decreasing trends in the catch per unit of effort, changes in the relative composition of the catch during the last 40 years, and collapsed or on the verge of collapse fished species since the 1970s have not yet recovered. The USVI fisheries system would benefit from redesigning regulation of input and output controls and upgrading the environmental baseline using the ecosystem‐based management approach.