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dc.contributor.authorShephard, Samuel
dc.contributor.authorGerritsen, H.D.
dc.contributor.authorKaiser, Michel J.
dc.contributor.authorReid, David G.
dc.date.accessioned2012-11-16T12:25:45Z
dc.date.available2012-11-16T12:25:45Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.identifier.citationShephard S, Gerritsen H, Kaiser MJ, Reid DG (2012) Spatial Heterogeneity in Fishing Creates de facto Refugia for Endangered Celtic Sea Elasmobranchs. PLoS ONE 7(11): e49307. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049307en_GB
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10793/840
dc.descriptionCopyright 2012 Shephard et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.en_GB
dc.descriptionpeer-reviewed
dc.description.abstractThe life history characteristics of some elasmobranchs make them particularly vulnerable to fishing mortality; about a third of all species are listed by the IUCN as Threatened or Near Threatened. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been suggested as a tool for conservation of elasmobranchs, but they are likely to be effective only if such populations respond to fishing impacts at spatial-scales corresponding to MPA size. Using the example of the Celtic Sea, we modelled elasmobranch biomass (kg h21) in fisheries-independent survey hauls as a function of environmental variables and ‘local’ (within 20 km radius) fishing effort (h y21) recorded from Vessel Monitoring Systems data. Model selection using AIC suggested strongest support for linear mixed effects models in which the variables (i) fishing effort, (ii) geographic location and (iii) demersal fish assemblage had approximately equal importance in explaining elasmobranch biomass. In the eastern Celtic Sea, sampling sites that occurred in the lowest 10% of the observed fishing effort range recorded 10 species of elasmobranch including the critically endangered Dipturus spp. The most intensely fished 10% of sites had only three elasmobranch species, with two IUCN listed as Least Concern. Our results suggest that stable spatial heterogeneity in fishing effort creates de facto refugia for elasmobranchs in the Celtic Sea. However, changes in the present fisheries management regime could impair the refuge effect by changing fisher’s behaviour and displacing effort into these areas.en_GB
dc.description.sponsorshipThe research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement MYFISH number 289257. David G. Reid also acknowledges funding from 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 National Development Plan 2007–2013. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.en_GB
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherPLOSen_GB
dc.relation.ispartofseries;7(11)
dc.subjectSpatial Heterogeneityen_GB
dc.subjectCreates de facto Refugiaen_GB
dc.subjectEndangereden_GB
dc.subjectCeltic Seaen_GB
dc.subjectElasmobranchsen_GB
dc.titleSpatial Heterogeneity in Fishing Creates de facto Refugia for Endangered Celtic Sea Elasmobranchsen_GB
dc.typeMonographen_GB
refterms.dateFOA2018-01-12T05:54:42Z


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