Report of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology (WGMME)
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ICES WGMME REPORT 2015 ICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE ICES CM 2015/ACOM:25 Report of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology (WGMME) 9–12 February 2015 London, UK International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer H. C. Andersens Boulevard 44–46 DK-1553 Copenhagen V Denmark Telephone (+45) 33 38 67 00 Telefax (+45) 33 93 42 15 www.ices.dk [email protected] Recommended format for purposes of citation: ICES. 2015. Report of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology (WGMME), 9– 12 February 2015, London, UK. ICES CM 2015/ACOM:25. 114 pp. For permission to reproduce material from this publication, please apply to the Gen- eral Secretary. The document is a report of an Expert Group under the auspices of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and does not necessarily represent the views of the Council. © 2015 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES WGMME REPORT 2015 | i Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................ 1 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3 2 Terms of Reference 2015 ............................................................................................... 4 3 ToR a: Review and report on any new information on population abundance, population/stock structure and management frameworks for marine mammals ..................................................................................................... 5 3.1 Abundance and trends of coastal cetaceans in the UK .................................... 5 3.2 Common and bottlenose dolphin abundance west of Ireland ....................... 6 3.3 Harbour porpoise distribution and abundance in German waters ............... 6 3.4 Harbour porpoise abundance in Dutch waters ................................................ 9 3.5 Harbour porpoise in Belgian waters ................................................................ 10 3.6 Project DEPONS .................................................................................................. 11 3.7 Cetacean distribution and abundance in French waters ............................... 12 3.8 Cetaceans in Spanish waters ............................................................................. 15 3.9 Cetacean abundance in Portuguese waters ..................................................... 18 3.10 Population structure of harbour porpoise in the North and Baltic Seas .................................................................................................................. 21 3.11 Bottlenose dolphin population structure in the Northeast Atlantic ............ 21 3.12 Future large-scale surveys ................................................................................. 21 4 ToR b and f ................................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 23 4.2 Development of the threat matrix .................................................................... 23 4.3 Ecosystem overviews ......................................................................................... 27 4.3.1 The Baltic Sea .......................................................................................... 27 4.3.2 Greater North Sea .................................................................................. 29 4.3.3 Celtic Seas including West Scotland ................................................... 35 4.3.4 The Bay of Biscay and the Iberian Peninsula ..................................... 39 4.3.5 Macaronesia ............................................................................................ 42 5 ToR c: Review North Atlantic information on negative and positive ecological interactions between grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) and harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) populations ............................................................ 46 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 46 5.2 Population trends in abundance ....................................................................... 46 5.2.1 Wadden Sea ............................................................................................ 46 5.2.2 Baltic Sea and Kattegat .......................................................................... 46 5.2.3 France ...................................................................................................... 47 5.2.4 UK and Ireland ....................................................................................... 48 ii | ICES WGMME REPORT 2015 5.2.5 Western North Atlantic ......................................................................... 48 5.2.6 Summary ................................................................................................. 51 5.3 At sea habitat use ................................................................................................ 51 5.4 Competition for prey resources ........................................................................ 54 5.4.1 Wadden Sea, Baltic Sea and Kattegat .................................................. 54 5.4.2 UK and Ireland ....................................................................................... 54 5.4.3 Western North Atlantic ......................................................................... 55 5.5 Haul-out site use ................................................................................................. 55 5.6 Predation of harbour seals by grey seals ......................................................... 56 6 ToR d: Update the database for seals, and review its usefulness in meeting the needs of Member States under EU’s MSFD ..................................... 58 6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 58 6.2 Area of relevance ................................................................................................ 58 6.3 Issues .................................................................................................................... 58 7 ToR e: Review and evaluate multispecies models that incorporate marine mammal consumption to assess marine mammal impacts on fishery resources, and make recommendations for improvements in input data and assumptions for the North Atlantic .............................................. 60 7.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 60 7.2 Whole ecosystem and dynamic system models ............................................. 61 7.2.1 Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) ................................................................. 61 7.2.2 Atlantis .................................................................................................... 65 7.2.3 Econetwrk ............................................................................................... 66 7.2.4 MARXAN ................................................................................................ 66 7.2.5 Other WEM ............................................................................................. 66 7.3 Minimum Realistic Models (MRM) .................................................................. 67 7.3.1 Extended Single-species Assessment Models (ESAM) ..................... 67 7.3.2 MSVPA-MSFOR and MSVPA-X .......................................................... 67 7.3.3 MULTSPEC, BORMICON and GADGET .......................................... 68 7.3.4 Stochastic Multispecies model ............................................................. 69 7.3.5 Size–spectrum models ........................................................................... 69 7.3.6 Multispecies production models (MS-PROD) ................................... 69 7.3.7 Other MRM ............................................................................................. 69 7.4 Individual-based models (IBM) ........................................................................ 70 7.4.1 OSMOSE.................................................................................................. 71 7.4.2 Other IBM ............................................................................................... 71 7.5 Bioenergetic models ........................................................................................... 71 7.6 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 72 8 References ..................................................................................................................... 74 Annex 1: Participants list .................................................................................... 100 Annex 2: Agenda .................................................................................................. 103 ICES WGMME REPORT 2015 | iii Annex 3: WGMME terms of reference for the next meeting ....................... 105 Annex 4: Recommendations .............................................................................. 107 ICES WGMME REPORT 2015 | 1 Executive summary New information on distribution and abundance of harbour porpoise available from aerial surveys in the North Sea has been compiled and will