Mismatch between biological, exploitation, and governance scales and ineffective management of sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus) fisheries in Galicia

Rosana Ouréns, Inés Naya and Juan Freire

Marine Policy, 2015, vol. 51, issue C, 13-20

Abstract: The spatial structure of fishery resources influences stock dynamics and finally the fishery. Therefore, this aspect should be included as a key topic in the assessment and management of fisheries. The fishery of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus in Galicia has been used as case study to demonstrate how the mismatch between biological, fishery and management scales causes failures in the governance, giving rise to over-exploitation. P. lividus is spatially distributed in nested biological units: patches, micro-stocks, local populations and metapopulations. Fishing operations are local exploiting micro-stocks; however management units in Galician comprise usually more than one local population. This pattern allows the depletion of several micro-stocks without any short-term signals in the exploitation rates over the complete managed territory. Management units should be redefined according to the boundaries of the local populations. In addition, the implementation of reserve networks or a rotation system could allow to effectively managing the resource at a fine-scale. Any of both regulations could also compensate the inverse density dependence that regulates recruitment and fecundity in this species.

Keywords: Metapopulation; Density dependence; Management; Sea urchin; Spatial structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X14001894
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:51:y:2015:i:c:p:13-20

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2014.07.015

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().