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Footprints in the sand: a persistent spatial impression of fishing in a mobile groundfish assemblage

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Abstract

Fishing is well known to curtail the size distribution of fish populations. This paper reports the discovery of small-scale spatial patterns in length appearing in several exploited species of Celtic Sea demersal ‘groundfish’. These patterns match well with spatial distributions of fishing activity, estimated from vessel monitoring records taken over a period of 6 years, suggesting that this ‘mobile’ fish community retains a persistent impression of local-scale fishing pressure. An individual random-walk model of fish movement best matched these exploitation ‘footprints’ with individual movement rates set to <35 km per year. We propose that Celtic Sea groundfish may have surprisingly low movement rates for much of the year, such that fishing impact is spatially heterogeneous and related to local fishing intensity.

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Acknowledgments

This study used survey data supplied the Irish Marine Institute. S.S. was funded from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement MYFISH no 289257. S.B.M.K. was funded through a fellowship (Grant-Aid Agreement No. PDOC/FS/07/002) funded by the Sea Change Strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and the Marine Research Sub-programme of the National Development Plan 2007–2013, Ireland. F. de C., K.D.F. and D.G.R. acknowledge support through a Beaufort Marine Research Award, carried out under the Sea Change Strategy and the Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation (2006–2013), with the support of the Marine Institute, funded under the Marine Research Sub-programme of the Irish National Development Plan 2007–2013. We appreciate the suggestions of the four anonymous reviewers that helped improve the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Author notes

  1. Sarah B. M. Kraak

    Present address: Thünen-Institut für Ostseefischerei, Rostock, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7BL, UK

    Francisco de Castro, Samuel Shephard, Sarah B. M. Kraak & Keith D. Farnsworth

  2. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Sarah B. M. Kraak

  3. Marine Institute, Rinville, Oranmore, Co. Galway, Ireland

    Sarah B. M. Kraak & David G. Reid

Authors
  1. Francisco de Castro
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  2. Samuel Shephard
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  3. Sarah B. M. Kraak
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  4. David G. Reid
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  5. Keith D. Farnsworth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francisco de Castro.

Additional information

Communicated by M.Peck.

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de Castro, F., Shephard, S., Kraak, S.B.M. et al. Footprints in the sand: a persistent spatial impression of fishing in a mobile groundfish assemblage. Mar Biol 162, 1239–1249 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-015-2665-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-015-2665-1

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