PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 9: Marine Ecology I: Management.
Presiding: D Policansky
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room C 120.
Consequences of fishing-the-line near a multispecies marine reserve.
Kellner, Julie*,1, Gaines, Steven1, Nisbet, Roger1, 1 University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
ABSTRACT- Throughout the world, "fishing-the-line" is a common harvester strategy in communities where marine reserves are implemented. This practice of concentrating fishing effort at the boundary of a marine reserve is predicated on the principle of spillover, the export of stock from the marine reserve to the open area. We explore the consequences and optimality of fishing-the-line using a spatially-explicit theoretical model. We show that fishing-the-line (1) is the optimal harvesting strategy for both exclusive and competitive multispecies fisheries near marine reserves with mobile species; (2) has a significant impact on the spatial patterns of CPUE and yield, and fish density both within and outside of the reserve; and (3) can enhance total standing stock and yield simultaneously for previously overexploited populations. Additionally, we explore the consequences of basing the distribution of fishing effort for a multispecies fishery upon the optimality of the most mobile species that exhibits the greatest spillover. Our results show that the intensity of effort allocated to fishing-the-line should instead be based upon more intermediate rates of mobility within the targeted community. These results reveal the need for empirical studies to account for harvester behavior and suggest that spatial discontinuities such as fishing-the-line should be incorporated into marine reserve design.
Key words: marine protected area, harvester, fishing-the-line, spillover