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Using Discards Estimates for Assessing the Impact of Fishing on Biodiversity

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Using Discards Estimates for Assessing the Impact of Fishing on Biodiversity International Council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES CM 2000/Mini:06 Using discards estimates for assessing the impact of fishing on biodiversity by Marie-Joëlle Rochet, Verena M. Trenkel, Jean-Charles Poulard and Isabelle Péronnet Abstract Estimating fisheries discards is an important step in assessing the impact of fishing on biodiversity, and an unavoidable precursor for effective conservation. Whereas ICES working groups already put some effort into incorporating discard information into stock assessments of target species, less is done for non-target species. This paper focuses on how this assessment can be achieved, illustrated with an example from the Celtic Sea. Community level indices such as diversity indices, species composition and size spectra of the total catch by the fishing fleet are compared to those obtained from surveys. For selected non-target species, an assessment of the impact of incidental catches on population dynamics is attempted. Survey-based abundance indices are combined with discard estimates and biological information to detect the effects of fishing on individual populations. Due to the poor quality of the available information, the assessments are not reliable. Hence outlines for suitable discard sampling strategies and biological survey designs which would allow better assessments are proposed. The complexity of multispecies multifleet fisheries involving many countries calls for coordinated efforts to carry out the proposed assessments. ICES might be an appropriate international forum to discuss the indices to be monitored and to propose operational sampling schemes. Keywords Discards; biodiversity; impact of fishing; non-target species; sampling strategies; population dynamics; community indices. Marie-Joëlle Rochet and Verena Trenkel: Laboratoire MAERHA, IFREMER, Rue de l'Ile d'Yeu, B.P. 21105, 44311 NANTES Cedex 03, FRANCE [tel: +33 2 40 37 41 21, fax: +33 2 40 37 40 75, e-mail: [email protected]]. Jean-Charles Poulard: Laboratoire ECOHAL, IFREMER, Rue de l'Ile d'Yeu, B.P. 21105, 44311 NANTES Cedex 03, FRANCE [tel: +33 2 40 37 40 00, fax: +33 2 40 37 40 75]. Isabelle Péronnet: Laboratoire Ressources Halieutiques, IFREMER, 8,rue François Toullec, 56000 LORIENT, FRANCE [tel: +33 2 97 87 38 17, fax: +33 2 97 87 38 01, e-mail: [email protected]] 1 1 Introduction Two points of view can be adopted for assessing the impact of fishing on biodiversity: assess to which extent fishing affects the community structure, or assess the impact on selected indicator species. In both cases information on discards in addition to landings is required. In this paper methods and indices for assessing such impacts are proposed. They are illustrated for the French fleet operating in the Celtic Sea, for which discards were sampled in 1997. First, community structure indices (diversity measures, biomass, size spectra) estimated from survey- based information are compared to those for the catch (discards + landings). Then, all available information (literature and survey-based) is used in an attempt to estimate the specific impact of fishing on some non-target species. Target species are not considered since they are covered by stock assessment working groups. Based on this example, information needed to assess the impact of fishing on biodiversity is listed. 2 Materials and methods 2.1 Celtic Sea example 2.1.1 Fishery information The Celtic Sea supports an international groundfish fishery, targeting mainly gadoids, monkfish, Nephrops and flatfish, all of which are assessed by ICES Working Groups (Anonymous, 1999b; Anonymous, 2000b). The French trawlers fleet accounts for about one half of total international landings from this area (estimated from Stock Assessment Working Group Reports). As some of the species are subject to high amounts of discarding, discard sampling surveys are undertaken every 4-5 years. Discards by the French fleet were sampled during 26 trips (0.8% of trips) in 1997. This fleet can be grouped into three métiers: demersal trawlers, benthic trawlers and Nephrops trawlers. The métiers are defined by several factors: fishing zone, gear and the target species. Discards are expected to vary in species composition and quantity due to these factors. Hence stratified sampling with the métiers as strata and the following levels was used: i) fishing trip, ii) haul, iii) fraction of the total amount of discards sampled. Two sampling procedures were used. Either an onboard observer carried out sampling and measuring, or the sample was stored by the fishermen for later analysis in the laboratory. In parallel, the landings corresponding to the selected fishing trips were sampled using standard procedures. Discards were raised for each métier, using simple stratified estimators. The French fleet operating in the Celtic Sea is estimated to have discarded 30,000 tons in 1997 (Table 1). Catch is the sum of landings and discards. All discarded animals are assumed to be dead. Table 11: Estimates of discards and landings for the French trawlers operating in the Celtic Sea in 1997. Métier Discards (t) Variance C.V. Landings (t) Discards / Catch Benthic 5 469 872 608 0.17 16 930 0.24 Demersal 12 083 21 425 508 0.38 35 191 0.26 Nephrops 13 566 29 117 218 0.40 11 089 0.55 Total 31 119 51 415 335 0.23 63 210 0.33 2 2.1.2 Surveys Information on the Celtic sea community is provided by the records of the French "EVHOE" surveys for autumns 1997 to 1999. During each cruise, 57 to 69 30 minutes-tows were performed with a GOV36/47 bottom trawl in ten strata defined by depth and geographic region. 60 to 77 tows were also performed in the Bay of Biscay. All fish were identified, weighted by species and individually measured. Numbers at length and weights caught per haul were raised to whole Celtic sea by the ratio of total area to trawled area for each stratum. Similar surveys were performed with another vessel in 1990 and 1992; conversion coefficients for the catch of both vessels are available from a calibration study (Pelletier, 1998). 2.2 Community inindicesdices Fishing might affect species diversity of a community by selectively removing some species, by reducing total biomass or by selectively removing a given size range. To assess the possible impacts of the fleet on the community and for comparing the métiers, we estimated indices of these quantities for the Celtic Sea using the survey data, and for the total catch of each métier and the fleet as a whole. 2.2.1 Biodiversity Both species richness and the Simpson index were used as community biodiversity indices. Species richness S is highly dependent on sampling effort. "Sampling effort" was approximated by the number of hauls: there were 462 commercial hauls but the cumulated hauls from the three surveys only amount to 186. To predict the theoretical species richness of a 462 hauls survey, the number of species present in subsamples was counted while gradually increasing the number of hauls included in the subsamples. A linear model of species richness as a function of the log number of simulated hauls yields the predicted number of species for 462 hauls (Lande, 1996). In contrast to species richness, the Simpson diversity index is not sensitive to sampling effort; it takes account of S = 2 the distribution of abundance among species: IS 1/ å pi (pi is the relative abundance of species i=1 = − − i). The equitability ES (IS 1)/(S 1) tends to 0 when one species dominates and to 1 when all species are evenly represented (Barbault, 1992). In addition, species compositions were also compared. 2.2.2 Biomass Biomass of the exploitable community was estimated by the biomass caught in the 1997 survey, raised to total Celtic Sea surface. Total caught biomass was obtained from landings statistics and discard estimates. 2.2.3 Size specspectratra Similarly, raised total numbers at length caught by each métier and the size spectrum of the 1997 survey were estimated. 2.3 Impact of fishing on nonnon---targettarget populations A complementary approach consists in assessing the impact of fishing on individual populations. In a first appraisal, fishing will be suspected to have an impact on a non-target population if i) mortality due to fishing accounts for a significant part of total mortality and ii) the population size decreases. The information available from the discard sampling programme is the estimated number of fish caught by the French fleet operating in the Celtic sea Cˆ . We use abundance estimates from the 1997 survey to compute the following parameters: 3 • The total number of fish in the population Nˆ and the fishing mortality rate F = Cˆ / Nˆ (and its variance according to Kendall and Stuart, 1977) due to this fleet. ˆ • Adult mortality rate Z from a catch-curve analysis of numbers at length Nl (Sparre and Siebren, 1992), using growth parameters found in the literature. These estimates allow to compute F/Z, answering point i. To examine point ii, additional calculations are needed. We tried two approaches. 2.3.1 A simple snapshot assessment ˆ For a given species, the number of fish N98 found in the Celtic Sea in 1998 at the time of the survey was equal to the number of fish in the 1997 survey, minus those that died in between, plus ˆ = ˆ + ˆ − the recruits: N98 N97 R98 D97 . Hence, if an estimate of recruitment is available, the total ˆ = ˆ − ˆ + ˆ ˆ number of deaths in 1997 is D97 N97 N98 R98 , of which C were caught. The comparison of ˆ ˆ N98 and N97 indicates whether the population decreased or increased during 1997, and the ˆ ˆ comparison of C with D97 gives an indication of the contribution of fishing to total mortality.
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