A big deal for fisheries
Date: May 10, 2018
Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
What difference does it make
whether an angler catches one big fish or two smaller fish, each half its
weight? Experts assumed that big and small fish invest the same proportion of
their energy to make eggs. But a new report in Science by a
Smithsonian biologist and colleagues shows that plus-sized females invest
disproportionately more in the number of eggs and the size of individual eggs.
Therefore, taking a single big fish has a bigger impact on the fish population
than taking multiple small ones.
"Our results are critical
for fisheries management: They tell us to reduce fishing pressure on large fish
rather than smaller ones in order to maintain and replenish stocks," said
staff scientist D. Ross Robertson at the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute (STRI) in Panama. "We need to focus on reducing fishing pressure
on large fish rather than exploiting them more heavily than small fish."
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