Policy analysis of the ‘MPA‐process’ in temperate continental shelf areas

• 1. The decision to designate, implement and manage marine protected areas (MPAs) is often made ad hoc without clear guiding procedures. This study evaluates the process of establishment and management of MPAs in temperate soft‐bottom marine areas, including identification of objectives, site selection, designation, implementation, ecological effectiveness and socio‐economic impacts.
• 2. For the first time, literature about marine conservation strategies in soft‐bottom temperate areas is brought together in one ‘systems approach’, which is visualized in a flow chart including three phases: setting policy objectives, making decisions and evaluating the eventual effects of the MPA. Policy objectives are generally easy to identify and in most cases national policy objectives are driven by international and regional legal obligations. The decision making process is the most complex phase, as the acceptance of MPAs has to be balanced against the human activities that take place in the area.
• 3. The relation between fisheries and MPA‐management appears to be most challenging in soft‐bottom temperate marine areas because of conflicting interests and institutional differences. Activities limited in space and not relying directly on ecosystem functions (e.g. offshore energy production and aggregate extraction) are generally easier to manage than fisheries.
• 4. The conceptual mapping exercise presented here serves as a basis for a systems approach for MPAs and has been tested for the Belgian coastal environment. In the Belgian ‘MPA‐process’, the application of the systems approach proves to be useful in providing insight into the complex interactions of various authorities with scattered jurisdictions.
• 5. The unified and simplified representation of the various aspects is (1) a useful communication tool for policy makers and managers to inform other sectors and the public at large and (2) a valuable support during the ‘MPA‐process’ that considerably enhances the prospects for success.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Myths and moderation in marine ‘metapopulations’?

The metapopulation concept is appearing with increasing frequency in the marine population dynamics and genetics literature, though its applicability to marine systems remains an open question. Moreover, in recent years, the meaning of the term ‘metapopulation’ has become blurred, concomitant with its increasing use. In this paper, we summarize the concept of metapopulation dynamics and the associated theoretical assumptions. We call for a stricter definition and use of the term ‘metapopulation’, critically evaluate the applicability of metapopulation theory to marine population dynamics and its use in the related literature, and consider two published case‐studies that investigate metapopulation structuring in specific marine populations. Finally, we urge scientists to carefully articulate what is meant by the term ‘metapopulation’ and to use appropriate citations in the primary literature to circumvent the potential for nebulous (and possibly damaging) conclusions in the future.     

Claiming seafood is ‘sustainable’ risks limiting improvements

Over the past decade, the sustainability of seafood production has improved and is cause for ocean optimism. In an attempt for recognition of ongoing efforts, many producers and food retailers now claim products are ‘sustainable’. What exactly does this mean and could we limit further improvement using this claim? Here, we discuss the sustainable/sustainability dichotomy, and the problem of communicating continual improvement in terms of grand and absolute claims – that is ‘We sell 100% sustainable product.’ We believe a statement like this risks short selling the challenges at hand and removes necessary and ongoing incentives for learning, improving and innovating. We argue the best path for producers and retailers is to demonstrate and communicate the concrete actions and achievements being made towards a more resilient and healthy food system today and for the future. This requires moving away from the current practice of calling products sustainable, and to instead work towards continually improving the sustainability of the products. Focusing on measuring the impact of our actions generates a wealth of substance and establishes a direction of travel towards seafood of greater sustainability and we believe this will help educate, inform and inspire consumers to make good choices for their own and future generations benefit. In this study, ‘seafood’ will refer to both farmed and wild seafood products, and ‘sustainability’ refers to the behavior that drives economic, environmental and ethical progress towards ensuring seafood availability ‘meet(s) the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.     

Marine protected areas in southern China: Upgrading conservation effectiveness in the ‘eco‐civilization’ era

1. ensuring that marine systems are not overwhelmed within the new national jurisdiction, and maintaining and enhancing marine capacity;
2. increased resourcing, supported by comprehensive and systematic economic valuations of ecosystem goods and services and natural capital;
3. upgraded enforcement of existing environmental laws and regulations, combined with further refinement and development, especially around cumulative impact management;
4. a particular focus on major reduction in water pollution in all forms;
5. integration of marine management between Hong Kong SAR and surrounding Guangdong Province; and
6. enhanced community engagement, participation and education.
7. Finally, much greater, collaborative engagement by the international community with Chinese marine management and conservation would bring major, and very mutual, benefits.

     

Investigating the ‘northern Humboldt paradox’ from model comparisons of small pelagic fish reproductive strategies in eastern boundary upwelling ecosystems

Eastern boundary upwelling ecosystems are highly productive and sustain the world’s largest fisheries, usually dominated by sardine and anchovy species. Stock size is highly variable from year to year due to the impact of the unstable physical environment on fish early stages. Biophysical models of early life‐stage dispersal of marine organisms have been built by coupling (i) hydrodynamic models and (ii) life history models (i.e. egg and larva stages), and are therefore useful tools to investigate physical–biological interactions. Here, we review biophysical models of anchovy and sardine ichthyoplankton dispersals developed in the Benguela, Humboldt and Canary Current upwelling ecosystems. We also include a similar study conducted in the California Current upwelling on zooplankton. We then integrate this information into a comparative analysis of sardine and anchovy reproductive strategies in the different systems. We found that the main spawning periods match the season of (i) maximal simulated ichthyoplankton retention over the continental shelf in the northern Benguela, southern Humboldt and Canary (for sardine); (ii) maximal food concentration in the southern Benguela, California and Canary (for anchovy); and (iii) maximal shelf retention of ichthyoplankton and food concentration in the northern Humboldt (for both anchovy and sardine). This specificity of the northern Humboldt ecosystem could explain why it sustains the largest small pelagic fish stock. Finally, the possible effects of climate change on these patterns are discussed.     

The olive oil by‐product in ‘rainbow trout Onchorynchus mykyss (Walbaum)’ farming: productive results and quality of the product

The aim of this work is to investigate olive oil by‐product [vegetation water (VW)] inclusion in rainbow trout diet and its effect on the productive traits and the quality of the product. Two levels of VW inclusion were used and one control group was included. Fish diets were isonitrogeonous (crude protein 40%) and isoenergetic (18 MJ kg^?1 DM). Two thousand and four hundred rainbow trout were used. An in vivo digestibility experiment was performed in order to determine diets’ digestibility. All the fish diets and fillets were analysed to determine the proximate and fatty acid composition. On final fish fillet, lipid oxidation was determined at 0, 24, 48, 72, 96 and 192 h of storage using the 2‐thiobarbituric acid method (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances). Aroma analyses on the final cooked and raw fillet were performed using an electronic nose. The VW inclusion partially reduced protein digestibility. The fish growth varied between 1.08% and 1.1% day. The supplemental level of VW led to a better antioxidant status of fish fillet, in particular, in the fillet sample after 72 h of fillet conservation. Principal component analysis in raw and cooked fish fillet indicates that the VW inclusion in the fish diet led to aroma modification on fish fillet.     

Contrasting intraspecific dietary shifts in two terapontid assemblages from Australia’s wet‐dry tropics

Abstract – This study assessed the size‐related patterns of dietary resource use in terapontid assemblages from two north Australian wet‐dry tropical river systems exhibiting contrasting long‐term flow regimes. Substantially higher size‐related dietary divergence in the form of additional trophic guilds and lower levels of dietary overlap were evident among terapontids from the comparatively stable Daly River system, particularly during the dry season. Relatively restricted expression of size‐related dietary shifts in conjunction with higher levels of dietary overlap and no significant seasonal effects on dietary overlap were features of assemblage interaction in the highly variable Burdekin River. Results highlight size‐related dietary shifts as a complex aspect of terapontid trophic habits, and one that can exhibit considerable spatial dynamism.     

Non‐spherical pearl layers in the Polynesian ‘black‐lipped’ Pinctada margaritifera: The non‐nacreous deposits compared to microstructure of the shell growing edge

Cultivated pearls frequently exhibit morphological irregularities making obvious that mineral deposition was irregularly distributed onto nucleus surface. Taking advantage of experimental cultivations with short durations (from 10 days to few months), these irregular deposits predating occurrence of the nacre were investigated in Polynesian pearls by biochemical characterizations and a series of physical methods. Diversity in the resulting data suggests that various in‐depth alterations of the biomineralization mechanism may have occurred during the grafting process, leading to diversity in the biochemical pathways to nacreous deposition. This allows a precise discussion of current views about pearl formation. The “reversed shell theory” is formally disproved through point to point comparison with development of the shell growing edge. Similarity of pearl formation with “regeneration” or “shell repair” is also discussed, emphasizing the differences between these concepts.     

Why are so many boreal freshwater fishes anadromous? Confronting ‘conventional wisdom’

Suggestions that anadromy predominates in northern high latitudes because boreal marine seas have high primary productivity are questioned. Instead, post‐Pleistocene invasion of far northern fresh waters, which became inhabitable as Pleistocene temperatures ameliorated, via coastal seas, is suggested as a primary cause for northern distributions of widely anadromous fish families. Also, cold temperature preferences may be implicated in determining the ranges of these families, as well as the inhospitability of far northern fresh waters and the lack of ecosystem space to support the huge populations of boreal anadromous fishes. Moreover, there are significant numbers of tropical anadromous fish species.     

Beyond ‘lognormal versus gamma’: discrimination among error distributions for generalized linear models

The process of model selection includes making an assumption about the distribution of ‘errors’ about the mean response. Generalized linear models (GLMs) offer considerable flexibility in this regard. However, graphical methods for identifying potential error distributions can fail to discriminate among sets of candidate error distributions. I examine an information-theoretic approach to this issue, which ranks candidate models (error distributions) using Akaike's information criterion (AIC). I evaluate the effectiveness of this technique using Monte Carlo simulation by generating pseudorandom data from five skewed distributions: lognormal, gamma, Weibull, log-logistic, and inverse Gaussian. I then fit each data set under all five distributional assumptions, and examine how well AIC identifies the distribution that generated the data. On the basis of the simulations, I suggest that AIC is effective at identifying the data-generating distribution, given moderate to large sample sizes. I then fit four candidate models to data drawn from a mixture of four distributions with common expectations and coefficients of variation (CVs). AIC did not show strong support for a particular candidate model given small samples of ‘mixed’ data, although larger samples selected the gamma distribution for CVs of 0.5 and 1.0, and the Weibull distribution for CVs of 1.5 and 2.0. Finally, I apply this technique in a GLM setting to several fisheries-independent and -dependent data sets to select the error distribution that is best supported by the data. Twenty-one out of 24 fisheries data sets examined showed strong support for one of the five candidate error distributions and the remaining moderate support for two.     

‘Delayed’ interference effects of air exposure on adult Chinese horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus

As the haemolymph supplier of the tachypleus amebocyte lysate industry in China, Chinese horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus) inevitably undergoes air‐exposure stress during transportation and haemolymph collection. In this study, the effects of air‐exposure stress and subsequent recovery process on the activities of phosphatases, antioxidant enzymes and haemocyanin concentration in Chinese horseshoe crab were investigated to understand its ability to resist air‐exposure stress. Results showed no significant effects on the total antioxidant capacity (T‐AOC), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), malondialdehyde (MDA) and alkaline phosphatase (AKP) between the control and experimental groups during the air‐exposure stress period (0–4 hr), except acid phosphatase (ACP). During the subsequent recovery period in water, significant differences in plasma T‐AOC levels and SOD, CAT, AKP and ACP activities were observed between both groups. No significant effects of CAT activity, SOD activity, MDA content and T‐AOC level were noted between the two groups after 12 hr of recovery. However, the AKP and ACP activities of the experimental group were significantly lower than those of the control group. Results revealed that air exposure may affect the activities of most non‐specific immune enzymes in the plasma of Chinese horseshoe crab, showing a ‘delayed” interference effect. Nevertheless, tested antioxidant enzymes have a strong recovery ability and can generally recover to the control group level after 12 hr. Haemocyanin concentration was not affected by air‐exposure stress during the whole experiment. Hereby, Chinese horseshoe crab can strongly resist air‐exposure stress.     

Regulated small rivers as ‘nursery’ areas for invasive largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides in Iberian waters

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Conservation of fish communities: Extending the ‘research life cycle’ by achieving practical effects

1. This article highlights the practical impact of our 2018 Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems publication, ‘Importance of peripheral basins: Implications for the conservation of fish assemblages’, which described fish communities in a Polish river.
2. Data on the fish assemblages of the Dniester River (Black Sea basin) are scarce; however, evidence indicates that the assemblages have declined. In our 2018 study, we hypothesized that the peripheral basin (the small basin on the edge) of the larger Upper Dniester River basin (the Strwi?? River) could maintain good ecological status and contained unique fish assemblages.
3. To examine the influence of historical factors and assess the role of peripheral basins on fish conservation, data from the Strwi?? basin were compared with the adjacent but unconnected Wiar basin (the Vistula basin; Baltic Sea basin). The Strwi?? River fish assemblages featured higher species richness and a greater number of native Ponto–Caspian species that function near the edge of their ranges.
4. This article focuses on four impacts of the 2018 publication: increasing awareness by various groups and organizations of the unique character of the surveyed river basin; highlighting important issues in assessing the ecological status of European rivers; driving the red‐listing of species and the development of stream fish conservation strategies; and identifying possible future impacts.
5. Our 2018 publication demonstrated the value of studying peripheral basins, which may affect conservation strategy development and encourage study of the importance of other peripheral basins and their role in aquatic resources conservation. Our article influenced the interpretation of fish‐based biotic indices and the conduct of monitoring work and its evaluation. It also strongly emphasized the native origin of the racer goby (Babka gymnotrachelus) in the Strwi?? River, which was important for subsequent works seeking to change the legal status of the species in Poland.

     

Productive performance of a new synthetic red tilapia population ‘Pargo‐UNAM’ compared with that of wild‐type Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus L.)

A 342‐day trial was conducted comparing productive performance in a synthetic strain of red tilapia Pargo‐UNAM (PU) and in a Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (NT) population during four experimental stages: Is, IIs, IIIs and IVs. In the Is, 900 nonsexually inverted PU and NT fry (0.07 and 0.06 g respectively) were each placed in four plastic tanks per strain. For the IIs [1.59 g (PU) and 1.39 g (NT)], the population in each replicate was reduced to 440. For the IIIs [36.6 g (PU) and 36.5 g (NT)], the tanks were culled to 220 fish and transferred to 1 m³ cages. At the end of IIIs, all the fish were sexed and 40 fish (133.3–231.6 g) of a single sex were placed in a cage, with eight per genetic group. Survival was similar between groups in any stage. Weight gain was similar in Is and IIs, while PU exhibited more growth than NT during the IIIs. At the end of the IVs, weight of males was similar (PU=623.4 g; NT=650.1 g), but PU females had higher weight (435.4 g) than NT females (323.6 g). Fillet rate (>32%) was similar in all groups. Advantages of culturing the synthetic strain ‘PU’ are discussed.     

Exploring the ‘public goods game’ model to overcome the Tragedy of the Commons in fisheries management

In situations of declining or depleted fish stocks, exploiters seem to have fallen prey to the Tragedy of the Commons, which occurs when the maximisation of short‐term self‐interest produces outcomes leaving all participants worse off than feasible alternatives would. Standard economic theory predicts that in social dilemmas, such as fishing from a common resource, individuals are not willing to cooperate and sacrifice catches in the short term, and that, consequently, the resource is overharvested. However, over the last decades, a multitude of research has shown that humans often achieve outcomes that are ‘better than rational’ by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust help to overcome the temptations of short‐term self‐interest. The evolution of the natural human tendency to cooperate under certain conditions can be explained, and its neuro‐physiological and genetic bases are being unravelled. Nevertheless, fisheries management still often deploys top‐down regulation and economic incentives in its aim to regulate fisher behaviour, and under‐utilizes the potential for spontaneous responsible fisher behaviour through setting conditions that enhance natural cooperative tendencies. Here I introduce this body of knowledge on how to overcome the Tragedy of the Commons to the audience of fisheries scientists, hoping to open up novel ways of thinking in this field. I do this through a series of thought experiments, based on actual published experiments, exploring under what conditions responsible and cooperative fisher behaviour can be expected. Keys include reputation‐building and indirect reciprocity, face‐to‐face communication, knowledge on the state of the resource, and self‐decision on rules and sanctions.     

Macro‐geographical differences influenced by family‐based expression on cultured pearl grade,shape and colour in the black‐lip ‘pearl oyster’ Pinctada margaritifera: a preliminary bi‐local case study in French Polynesia

In French Polynesia, the aquaculture of Pinctada margaritifera is carried out in numerous grow‐out sites, located over three archipelagos (Gambier, Society and Tuamotu). To evaluate the impact of macro‐geographical effects of these growing sites on pearl quality traits, five hatcheries produced families were used as homogeneous donor oysters in an experimental graft. The molluscs were then reared in two commercial locations: Tahaa Island (Society) and Rangiroa atoll (Tuamotu). At harvest, eight pearl quality traits were recorded and compared: surface defects, lustre, grade, circles, shape categories, darkness level, body and secondary colour and visual colour categories. Overall inter‐site comparison revealed that: (1) all traits were affected by grow‐out location except for lustre and round shape, and (2) a higher mean rate of valuable pearls was produced in Rangiroa. Indeed, for pearl grade, Rangiroa showed twice as many A‐B and less reject samples than Tahaa. This was related to the number of surface defects (grade component): in Rangiroa, twice as many pearls had no defects and less pearls had up to 10 defects. Concerning pearl shape, more circled and baroque pearls were found in Tahaa (+10%). For colour variation, 10% more pearls have an attractive green overtone in Rangiroa than in Tahaa, where more grey body colour were harvested. Lustre does not seem to be affected by these two culture site (except at a family scale). This is the first time P. margaritifera donor family have been shown to vary in the quality of pearls they produce depending on their grow‐out location.