Using biological traits to asses fishing gear impacts in the seabed. The INTEMARES experience
José
M.
González-Irusta1*,
Antonio
Punzón1,
Ana
De La Torriente1,
Marian
Blanco1,
Elvira
Ceballos1,
Emilio
González-García1,
Pablo
Martín-Sosa1,
Elena
Prado1,
Augusto
Rodríguez-Basalo1*,
José Luis
Rueda1,
Francisco
Sánchez1 and
Alberto
S.
López1
-
1
Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Spain
The application of Biological Traits Analysis to asses fishing gear impacts in the sea bed is reaching growing importance in the last years (e.g. Tillin et al., 2006; De Juan et al., 2007; De Juan and Demestre, 2012; Foster et al., 2015; González-Irusta et al., 2018) driven by the implementation of the ecosystem approach into the management of the marine ecosystems. Most of this effort has been focused on analyzing trawling impacts whereas the impacts of other gears such as longline or gill nets have not been analyzed with the same intensity spite being widely used on Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). In the framework of the INTEMARES project (www.intemares.es), the impact of three different gears (otter trawl, gill nets and longlines) have been analyzed in the benthic communities of the Aviles Canyon System, a Site of Community Importance (SCI) of the Spanish marine Natura 2000 network. The soft and hard bottoms of the studied area were sampled using a wide range of methodologies (beam trawl, photogrammetric sledge, box corer, rock dredge) in sites with different levels of fishing effort for each analyzed gear. The fishing effort was determined using data from the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) of the fishing boats, which provides boat´s location and other relevant information every 2 hours allowing to delineate fishing effort maps with a resolution of 500 m (Punzón et al., 2016). The sampled benthic species (excluding fishes) were analyzed using the same traits and scores applied in the BESITO index (González-Irusta et al, 2018) which includes; size, longevity, attachment type, benthic position, flexibility, fragility and feeding habit. For each trait, scores from 1 to 4 were assigned, being 1 the less sensitive category to the trawling and 4 the most sensitive category. A complete description of the traits and the scores can be consulted in González-Irusta et al. (2018). Gill net and trawling impacts were apparent in most of the analyzed traits (Figures 1 and 2 respectively) whereas longline impacts had a less clear effect on benthic species. Some traits, such as longevity or size showed a common negative response to trawling and gill net impacts whereas others showed a specific response to each gear (e.g. feeding habit or motility). The results shown in this work are a first step in the development of new metrics, which will allow to extent the BESITO index approach to other fishing gears such as longline and gill net. The development of common methodologies to asses fishing impacts of different gears is a necessary step to allow the analysis of cumulative impacts, a key point in the implementation of the ecosystem approach and its legislative frame (Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Habitat Directive, Marine Spatial Planning Directive).
FIGURE CAPTIONS
Figure 1. Gill net impact. Evolution of each trait category relative abundance (%) across a gill net impact gradient with five categories; Very low effort, low effort, medium effort, high effort and very high effort. Trait categories: score 1 (light blue), score 2 (dark blue), score 3 (light green), score 4 (dark green).
Figure 2. Trawling net impact. Evolution of each trait category relative abundance (%) across a gill net impact gradient with five categories; Very low effort, low effort, medium effort, high effort and very high effort. Trait categories: score 1 (light blue), score 2 (dark blue), score 3 (light green), score 4 (dark green).
References
De Juan, S., Thrush, S. F., and Demestre, M. 2007. Functional changes as indicators of trawling disturbance on a benthic community located in a fishing ground (NW Mediterranean Sea). Marine Ecology Progress Series, 334: 117–129.
De Juan, S., and Demestre, M. 2012. A Trawl Disturbance Indicator to quantify large scale fishing impact on benthic ecosystems. Ecological Indicators.
Foster, S. D., Dunstan, P. K., Althaus, F., and Williams, A. 2015. The cumulative effect of trawl fishing on a multispecies fish assemblage in south-eastern Australia. Journal of Applied Ecology, 52: 129–139.
González-Irusta, J. M., De la Torriente, A., Punzón, A., Blanco, M., and Serrano, A. 2018. Determining and mapping species sensitivity to trawling impacts: the BEnthos Sensitivity Index to Trawling Operations (BESITO). ICES Journal of Marine Science.
Punzón, A., Arronte, J. C., Sánchez, F., and García-alegre, A. 2016. Spatial characterization of the fisheries in the Avilés Canyon System (Cantabrian Sea, Spain) Caracterización espacial de las pesquerías en el Sistema de Cañones de Avilés (mar Cantábrico, España). Scientia Marina, 42: 237–260.
Tillin, H., Hiddink, J., Jennings, S., and Kaiser, M. 2006. Chronic bottom trawling alters the functional composition of benthic invertebrate communities on a sea-basin scale. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 318: 31–45.
Keywords:
Marine protected area (MPA),
vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME),
fishing impacts,
gillnet and longline fisheries,
Trawling impact,
Fishing impact assessment,
Biological Traits Analysis (BTA)
Conference:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) , Braga, Portugal, 9 Sep - 12 Sep, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Ecology, Biodiversity and Vulnerable Ecosystems
Citation:
González-Irusta
JM,
Punzón
A,
De La Torriente
A,
Blanco
M,
Ceballos
E,
González-García
E,
Martín-Sosa
P,
Prado
E,
Rodríguez-Basalo
A,
Rueda
J,
Sánchez
F and
López
AS
(2019). Using biological traits to asses fishing gear impacts in the seabed. The INTEMARES experience.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
XX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies (SIEBM XX) .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fmars.2019.08.00026
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Received:
20 Jun 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. José M González-Irusta, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Madrid, Madrid, 28002, Spain, gonzalezirusta@gmail.com
Mr. Augusto Rodríguez-Basalo, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Madrid, Madrid, 28002, Spain, augusto.rodriguez@ieo.csic.es