Sustainable reference points for multispecies coral reef fisheries

Zamborain-Mason, Jessica, Cinner, Joshua E., MacNeil, M. Aaron, Graham, Nicholas A.J., Hoey, Andrew S., Beger, Maria, Brooks, Andrew J., Booth, David J., Edgar, Graham J., Feary, David A., Ferse, Sebastian C.A., Friedlander, Alan M., Gough, Charlotte L.A., Green, Alison L., Mouillot, David, Polunin, Nicholas V.C., Stuart-smith, Rick D., Wantiez, Laurent, Williams, Ivor D., Wilson, Shaun K., and Connolly, Sean R. (2023) Sustainable reference points for multispecies coral reef fisheries. Nature Communications, 14 (1). 5368.

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Abstract

Sustainably managing fisheries requires regular and reliable evaluation of stock status. However, most multispecies reef fisheries around the globe tend to lack research and monitoring capacity, preventing the estimation of sustainable reference points against which stocks can be assessed. Here, combining fish biomass data for >2000 coral reefs, we estimate site-specific sustainable reference points for coral reef fisheries and use these and available catch estimates to assess the status of global coral reef fish stocks. We reveal that >50% of sites and jurisdictions with available information have stocks of conservation concern, having failed at least one fisheries sustainability benchmark. We quantify the trade-offs between biodiversity, fish length, and ecosystem functions relative to key benchmarks and highlight the ecological benefits of increasing sustainability. Our approach yields multispecies sustainable reference points for coral reef fisheries using environmental conditions, a promising means for enhancing the sustainability of the world’s coral reef fisheries.

Item ID: 80512
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2041-1723
Copyright Information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited: 11 Oct 2023 00:31
FoR Codes: 44 HUMAN SOCIETY > 4406 Human geography > 440604 Environmental geography @ 10%
30 AGRICULTURAL, VETERINARY AND FOOD SCIENCES > 3005 Fisheries sciences > 300505 Fisheries management @ 90%
SEO Codes: 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1805 Marine systems and management > 180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems @ 100%
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