Can data collected from marine protected areas improve estimates of life-history parameters?

One of the argued research-related benefits of marine protected areas (MPAs) to fisheries management is that because there is no fishing inside of an MPA, it may be possible to precisely estimate the rate of natural mortality and better determine growth and maturity rates, parameters that are often prespecified in stock assessments. This study assesses the degree to which having an MPA increases the ability to estimate these parameters in a integrated stock assessment model, Stock Synthesis; how long it would take for these benefits to be reflected in improved estimates of management quantities; and the extent to which these improvements will be reduced or lost if there is movement of adults (i.e., spillover) from the MPA to the fished area. A two-area, age- and length-structured simulation model is used to examine these benefits on estimation performance for Stock Synthesis. Given the data and process assumptions explored here, the extent of improvement in estimation of growth and maturity parameters wit...

[1]  Serge M. Garcia,et al.  When can marine reserves improve fisheries management , 2004 .

[2]  Arni Magnusson,et al.  What makes fisheries data informative , 2007 .

[3]  C. Goodyear,et al.  Spawning stock biomass per recruit in fisheries management: foundation and current use , 1993 .

[4]  R. Beverton.  Patterns of reproductive strategy parameters in some marine teleost fishes , 1992 .

[5]  Protected Areas.  1993 United Nations list of national parks and protected areas , 1994 .

[6]  C. Walters,et al.  Quantitative Fisheries Stock Assessment , 1992, Springer US.

[7]  André E. Punt,et al.  Evaluating alternative estimators of fishery management reference points , 2008 .

[8]  R. Beverton,et al.  On the dynamics of exploited fish populations , 1993, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.

[9]  M. Haddon.  Management Strategy Evaluation , 2000 .

[10]  James N. Ianelli,et al.  Simulation Analyses Testing the Robustness of Productivity Determinations from West Coast Pacific Ocean Perch Stock Assessment Data , 2002 .

[11]  R. Hilborn,et al.  The cost of overfishing and management strategies for new fisheries on slow-growing fish : Orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) in New Zealand , 2006 .

[12]  Richard D. Methot,et al.  Does MPA mean 'Major Problem for Assessments'? Considering the consequences of place-based management systems , 2006 .

[13]  David A. Fournier,et al.  MULTIFAN-CL: a length-based, age-structured model for fisheries stock assessment, with application to South Pacific albacore, Thunnus alalunga , 1998 .

[14]  F. David,et al.  On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations , 1959, Fish & Fisheries Series.

[15]  J. Ianelli,et al.  Designing tools to evaluate fishery management strategies: can the scientific community deliver? , 2007 .

[16]  Jon T. Schnute,et al.  The influence of error on population estimates from catch-age models , 1995 .

[17]  R. Galzin,et al.  Density dependence in marine protected populations: a review , 2000, Environmental Conservation.

[18]  David B. Sampson,et al.  Bias and Precision of Estimates from an Age-Structured Stock Assessment Program in Relation to Stock and Data Characteristics , 2004 .

[19]  R. Hilborn,et al.  Fisheries stock assessment and decision analysis: the Bayesian approach , 1997, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.

[20]  William G. Clark,et al.  Groundfish Exploitation Rates Based on Life History Parameters , 1991 .

[21]  C. Roberts,et al.  Fisheries benefits and optimal design of marine reserves , 1999 .

[22]  Richard D. Methot,et al.  Adjusting for bias due to variability of estimated recruitments in fishery assessment models , 2011 .

[23]  Paul B. Conn,et al.  When can we reliably estimate the productivity of fish stocks , 2010 .

[24]  Garry R. Russ,et al.  Density-dependent spillover from a marine reserve: long-term evidence , 2005 .

[25]  Alan Hastings,et al.  COMPARING DESIGNS OF MARINE RESERVES FOR FISHERIES AND FOR BIODIVERSITY , 2003 .

[26]  Ray Hilborn,et al.  Compensatory density dependence in fish populations: importance, controversy, understanding and prognosis , 2001 .

[27]  Grant G. Thompson,et al.  Confounding of Gear Selectivity and the Natural Mortality Rate in Cases where the Former is a Nonmonotone Function of Age , 1994 .

[28]  Richard D. Methot,et al.  Estimating natural mortality within a fisheries stock assessment model: An evaluation using simulation analysis based on twelve stock assessments , 2011 .