Title
Ecosystem scenarios shape fishermen spatial behavior. The case of the Peruvian anchovy fishery in the Northern Humboldt Current System
Date Issued
01 November 2014
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
A major goal in marine ecology is the understanding of the interactions between the dynamics of the different ecosystem components, from physics to top predators. While fishermen are among the main top predators at sea, almost none of the existing studies on ecology from physics to top predators contemplate fishermen as part of the system. The present work focuses on the coastal processes in the Northern Humboldt Current System, which encompasses both an intense climatic variability and the largest monospecific fishery of the world. From concomitant satellite, acoustic survey and Vessel Monitoring System data (~90,000 fishing trips) for a ten-year period (2000-2009), we quantify the associations between the dynamics of the spatial behavior of fishermen, environmental conditions and anchovy (. Engraulis ringens) biomass and spatial distribution. Using multivariate statistical analyses we show that environmental and anchovy conditions do significantly shape fishermen spatial behavior and present evidences that environmental fluctuations smoothed out along trophic levels. We propose a retrospective analysis of the study period in the light of the ecosystem scenarios evidenced and we finally discuss the potential use of fishermen spatial behavior as ecosystem indicator.
Start page
60
End page
73
Volume
128
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Oceanografía, Hidrología, Recursos hídricos Ingeniería oceanográfica Ecología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85027942224
Source
Progress in Oceanography
ISSN of the container
00796611
Sponsor(s)
This work is a contribution to the cooperative agreement between the Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE), the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) project ‘Top Predators as Indicators of Exploited Marine Ecosystem dynamics’ (TOPINEME), and the International Joint Laboratory DISCOH. R. Joo was financially supported by an ARTS grant from IRD and managed by Campus France.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus