Rebecca L. Lewison*, Sloan A. Freeman and Larry B. Crowder Duke University Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, 135 Duke Marine Lab Road, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA *Correspondence: E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The depletion of fish stocks from global fisheries has been a long-standing concern. More recently, incidental catch of non-target (termed ...

The North Atlantic is a productive marine region which has supported important commercial fisheries for centuries. Many of these fisheries have exploited the pelagic species, including herring, blue whiting and tuna. Here we present data on the distribution of herring and blue whiting based on the international ecosystem survey in the Nordic Seas (IESNS), the bottom trawl survey in the Bay of B...

Pelagic ecosystems support a significant and vital component of the ocean's productivity and biodiversity. They are also heavily exploited and, as a result, are the focus of numerous spatial planning initiatives. Over the past decade, there has been increasing enthusiasm for protected areas as a tool for pelagic conservation, however, few have been implemented. Here we demonstrate an approach t...

An ecosystem modelling approach was used to understand and assess the Mediterranean marine ecosystem structure and function as a whole. In particular, 2 food web models for the 1950s and 2000s were built to investigate: (1) the main structural and functional characteristics of the Mediterranean food web during these 2 time periods; (2) the key species/functional groups and interactions; (3) the...

Large pelagic sharks are declining in abundance in many oceans owing to fisheries exploitation. What is not known however is whether within-species geographical segregation of the sexes exacerbates this as a consequence of differential exploitation by spatially focused fisheries. Here we show striking sexual segregation in the fastest swimming shark, the shortfin mako Isurus oxyrinchus, across ...

Pelagic Fisheries and Ecosystems, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Castray Esplanade, Hobart 7000, Tasmania, Australia ; Center for Stock Assessment Research, Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics MS E-2, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Ecosciences Precinct, ...

Impacts of hypoxia on the structure and processes in the pelagic community (zooplankton, macro-invertebrates and fish) W. Ekau, H. Auel, H.-O. Pörtner, and D. Gilbert Fisheries Biology, Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Fahrenheitstr. 6, 28359 Bremen, Germany Marine Zoology (FB 2), University of Bremen, P.O. Box 330 440, 28334 Bremen, Germany Integrative Ecophysiology, Alfred Wegener ...

The mean trophic level of the species groups reported in Food and Agricultural Organization global fisheries statistics declined from 1950 to 1994. This reflects a gradual transition in landings from long-lived, high trophic level, piscivorous bottom fish toward short-lived, low trophic level invertebrates and planktivorous pelagic fish. This effect, also found to be occurring in inland fisheri...

The artisanal fisheries of Ecuador operate within one of the most dynamic and productive marine ecosystems of the world. This study investigates the catch composition of the Ecuadorian artisanal fishery for large pelagic fishes, including aspects of its spatio-temporal dynamics. The analyses of this study are based on the most extensive dataset available to date for this fishery: a total of 106...

Seals and humans often target the same food resource, leading to competition. This is of mounting concern with fish stocks in global decline. Grey seals were tracked from southeast Ireland, an area of mixed demersal and pelagic fisheries, and overlap with fisheries on the Celtic Shelf and Irish Sea was assessed. Overall, there was low overlap between the tagged seals and fisheries. However, whe...