Biodiversity and intra-specific genetic diversity are interrelated and determine the potential of a community to survive and evolve. Both are considered together in Prokaryote communities treated as metagenomes or ensembles of functional variants beyond species limits.Many factors alter biodiversity in higher Eukaryote communities, and human exploitation can be one of the most important for som...

The relationship between annual water level of Danube and annual catches of Pontic shad (Alosa immaculata, Bennett 1835) in Romania were analyzed. For analysis of long term data on the Danube water level and Pontic shad catch (1920-2013), combinations of different methods were applied using programs Statistica, SPSS 13.0 and MATLAB 6. Periodograms, containing cyclic patterns, were obtained usin...

The combination of prevailing northeasterly tradewinds and island topography results in the formation of vigorous, westward propagating cyclonic eddies in the lee of the Hawaiian Islands on time scales of 50–70 days. These mesoscale (~102 km) features are nowhere more conspicuous or spin up more frequently than in the Alenuihaha Channel between the Island of Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii. C...

During fishing operations, fish are often caught that were not targeted. When the species in question are of low value, or protected, this ‘by-catch’ is often thrown overboard as ‘discards’, the retained part of the catch constituting the landings. The amounts of fish discarded are generally highly areaand gear-specific, but can be high; for example, discards in tropical shrimp trawl fisheries ...

Data from 4,713 fisheries worldwide, representing 78% of global reported fish catch, are analyzed to estimate the status, trends, and benefits of alternative approaches to recovering depleted fisheries. For each fishery, we estimate current biological status and forecast the impacts of contrasting management regimes on catch, profit, and biomass of fish in the sea. We estimate unique recovery t...

Many commercial fisheries seek to maximise the economic value of the catch that they bring ashore and market for human consumption by discarding undersize or low value fish. Information on the quantity, size and species composition of discarded fish is vital for stock assessments and for devising legislation to minimise the practice. However, except for a few major species, data are usually ext...

To visualize or address complex real world problems, eliciting and mapping of a mental model is reasonable approach but it is far from sufficient by itself. In this article we present a system dynamics model. The purpose of the model is to develop a sustainable model for fish population, growth, and harvesting. The model was run through several important tests to determine its sensitivity to ch...

The limitations of your data collection process affect the inferences you can draw from the data. In the case of the fish-size-estimation problem, a selection effect—the net’s being able to sample only the big fish—invalidates any attempt to extrapolate from the catch to the population remaining in the water. Had your net had a finer mesh, allowing it to sample randomly from all the fish, then ...

—Trap nets of varying design are commonly used to assess fish populations, but the effect of the design on gear selectivity is not well known. In particular, it may be advantageous to use multiple net designs with different mesh and throat sizes to maximize the catch of specific length-classes and to minimize the risk of predation on small fish by larger fish. We compared the species compositio...

A model based on a short fishery statistics survey was applied to estimate catch and catch per unit effort (cpue) of the Galician monkfish (Lophius spp.) trawl fleet during 1998. In all, 35 interviews were conducted with fisheries personnel in ICES Divisions IXa, VIIIc, VIIId, and VIIIe (coastal offshore fishing grounds) and 44 in VIIb, VIIc, VIIj, and VIIk (Grand Sole fishing ground). Reliabil...