Small-scale fisheries catch more threatened elasmobranchs inside partially protected areas than in unprotected areas

Manfredi Di Lorenzo (), Antonio Calò, Antonio Di Franco (), Giacomo Milisenda, Giorgio Aglieri, Carlo Cattano, Marco Milazzo and Paolo Guidetti
Additional contact information
Manfredi Di Lorenzo: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Sicily Marine Center, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo (complesso Roosevelt)
Antonio Calò: University of Palermo
Antonio Di Franco: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Sicily Marine Center, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo (complesso Roosevelt)
Giacomo Milisenda: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Sicily Marine Center, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo (complesso Roosevelt)
Giorgio Aglieri: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Sicily Marine Center, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo (complesso Roosevelt)
Carlo Cattano: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Sicily Marine Center, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo (complesso Roosevelt)
Marco Milazzo: University of Palermo
Paolo Guidetti: Department of Integrative Marine Ecology (EMI), Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn–National Institute of Marine Biology, Ecology and Biotechnology, Genoa Marine Centre

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Elasmobranchs are heavily impacted by fishing. Catch statistics are grossly underestimated due to missing data from various fishery sectors such as small-scale fisheries. Marine Protected Areas are proposed as a tool to protect elasmobranchs and counter their ongoing depletion. We assess elasmobranchs caught in 1,256 fishing operations with fixed nets carried out in partially protected areas within Marine Protected Areas and unprotected areas beyond Marine Protected Areas borders at 11 locations in 6 Mediterranean countries. Twenty-four elasmobranch species were recorded, more than one-third belonging to the IUCN threatened categories (Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered). Catches per unit of effort of threatened and data deficient species were higher (with more immature individuals being caught) in partially protected areas than in unprotected areas. Our study suggests that despite partially protected areas having the potential to deliver ecological benefits for threatened elasmobranchs, poor small-scale fisheries management inside Marine Protected Areas could hinder them from achieving this important conservation objective.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32035-3 Abstract (text/html)

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:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-32035-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32035-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().