Skip Navigation


ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on January 16, 2009
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2009 66(3):478-487; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn224
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
66/3/478    most recent
fsn224v1
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 Leporati, S. C.
Right arrow Articles by Semmens, J. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Leporati, S. C.
Right arrow Articles by Semmens, J. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2009 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Assessing the stock status of holobenthic octopus fisheries: is catch per unit effort sufficient?

Stephen C. Leporati, Philippe E. Ziegler and Jayson M. Semmens

Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute, Marine Research Laboratories, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 49, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia

Correspondence to S. C. Leporati: tel: +61 3 62277277; fax: +61 3 62278035; e-mail: stephen.leporati{at}utas.edu.au.

Leporati, S. C., Ziegler, P. E., and Semmens, J. M. 2009. Assessing the stock status of holobenthic octopus fisheries: is catch per unit effort sufficient? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 478–487.

Holobenthic and merobenthic octopus fisheries are commonly treated as biological equivalents, regardless of their contrasting life-history strategies. This is the consequence of a lack of species identification and relevant biological information for many species, which has led to a reliance on catch per unit effort (cpue) data for stock status assessments. Using the commercial Octopus pallidus fishery in southeast Australian waters as a case study, the reliability of commercial cpue data as an indicator of stock status for holobenthic octopus fisheries was assessed. To achieve this, cpue and biological information from a fixed position experimental research line were investigated for consistency in stock status patterns and compared with commercial fishery cpue trends. Research line results revealed that cpue could remain stable regardless of size-selective fishing mortality potentially impacting recruitment. The cpue in the commercial fishery was very seasonal and dominated by females during autumn, when both cpue and spawning periods peaked, so increasing the potential for negative fishery impacts on egg production. The inability of cpue to account for the effects of continual fishing pressure on recruitment or seasonal changes in sex-specific catchability, however, indicates that cpue alone cannot provide sufficient information on the status of a holobenthic octopus fishery.

Keywords: catch per unit effort, effects of fishing, octopus, recruitment, season

Received 19 June 2008; accepted 18 December 2008; advance access publication 16 January 2009.


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.