Skip Navigation


ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on December 4, 2008
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2009 66(1):72-81; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn187
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
66/1/72    most recent
fsn187v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Edwards, C. T. T.
Right arrow Articles by Plagányi, E. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Edwards, C. T. T.
Right arrow Articles by Plagányi, E. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following ICES Journal of Marine Science issue: European Symposium on Marine Protected Areas as a Tool for Fisheries Management and Ecosystem Conservation [View the issue table of contents]

Investigating the consequences of Marine Protected Areas for the South African deep-water hake (Merluccius paradoxus) resource

Charles T. T. Edwards, Rébecca A. Rademeyer, Doug S. Butterworth and Éva E. Plagányi

Marine Resource Assessment and Management Group, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa

Correspondence to C. T. T. Edwards: tel: +27 21 650 2336; fax: +27 21 686 0477; e-mail: charles.edwards{at}uct.ac.za.

Edwards, C. T. T., Rademeyer, R. A., Butterworth, D. S., and Plagányi, É. E. 2009. Investigating the consequences of Marine Protected Areas for the South African deep-water hake (Merluccius paradoxus) resource. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 72–81.

Protected areas are often touted as important management tools to mitigate the uncertainty inherent in marine ecosystems, and thereby improve the long-term prospects for sustainable resource use. However, although they certainly play an important role in conservation, their usefulness in improving fishery yields is contentious. We present a simulation model that explores spatial closure options, and apply it to the demersal hake trawl fishery off South Africa. The model is based on the age-structured approach used for current assessments, representing the dynamics of the deep-water hake Merluccius paradoxus within a zonally disaggregated spatial system. Fitting the model to two zones, which demarcate a potential closed area from the remaining fished area, we investigate the consequences that such a protected area could have for the fishery. Our model suggests that area closures would have a negligible benefit for the fishery, regardless of the level of hake movement between areas. This is likely the result of the model's simplicity, and we suggest additional factors that should be considered to quantify the impact of Marine Protected Areas on the fishery more reliably.

Keywords: hake, Marine Protected Areas, South Africa, spatial model, trawl

Received 7 November 2007; accepted 30 May 2008; advance access publication 4 December 2008.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.