PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

More management measures lead to healthier fish populations

More management measures lead to healthier fish populations
2021-01-11
(Press-News.org) Fish populations tend to do better in places where rigorous fisheries management practices are used, and the more measures employed, the better for fish populations and food production, according to a new paper published Jan. 11 in Nature Sustainability.

The study, led by Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, draws upon the expertise of more than two dozen researchers from 17 regions around the world. The research team analyzed the management practices of nearly 300 fish populations to tease out patterns that lead to healthier fisheries across different locations. Their findings confirmed, through extensive data analysis, what many researchers have argued for several years.

"In general, we found that more management attention devoted to fisheries is leading to better outcomes for fish and shellfish populations," Melnychuk said. "While this won't be surprising to some, the novelty of this work was in assembling the data required and then using statistical tools to reveal this pattern across hundreds of marine populations."

The research team used an international database that is the go-to scientific resource on the status of more than 600 individual fish populations They chose to analyze 288 populations that generally are of value economically and represent a diversity of species and regions. They then looked over time at each fish population's management practices and were able to draw these conclusions: In regions of the world where fish and shellfish populations are well studied, overall fisheries management intensity has steadily increased over the past half century As fisheries management measures are implemented, fishing pressure is usually reduced toward sustainable levels, and population abundance usually increases toward healthy targets If fish populations become depleted as a result of overfishing, a rebuilding plan may be implemented. These plans tend to immediately decrease fishing pressure and allow populations to recover If strong fisheries management systems are put in place early enough, then overfishing can be avoided and large, sustainable catches can be harvested annually, rendering emergency measures like rebuilding plans unnecessary

The study builds on previous work that found, by using the same database, that nearly half of the fish caught worldwide are from populations that are scientifically monitored and, on average, are increasing in abundance. The new paper takes a closer look at specific management actions and how they have impacted fishing pressure and the abundance of each population examined, Melnychuk explained.

"All fish populations have their own unique contexts that might dictate what management tools would be most helpful and promising to use," he said. "Despite the great diversity in their management objectives and various strategies to meet those, we focused on key management tools in common to many fisheries around the world."

The international research team chose to look at a spectrum of fish populations, such as hakes in South Africa and Europe, orange roughy in New Zealand, tuna species on the high seas, anchovies in South America and scallops off the Atlantic coast of North America. Most of the populations they examined had a history of being depleted at some point, usually due to historical overfishing.

For example, with U.S. mid-Atlantic population of black sea bass, a rebuilding plan instituted in 1996 brought fishing rates down from three times the sustainable level to below this mark, which led to a steady rebuilding of the fishery and full recovery by 2009.

"Fishers targeting black sea bass in the northeastern U.S. are finally reaping the rewards of harvest caps that allowed the population to rebuild," said co-author Olaf Jensen of the University of Wisconsin--Madison. "The 2020 catch limit of more than 6,000 tons is the highest since catch limits were first imposed more than 20 years ago."

This analysis omits fisheries that lack scientific estimates of population status, even though these account for a large amount of the world's catch. These include most of the fish populations in South Asia and Southeast Asia -- fisheries in India, Indonesia and China alone represent 30% to 40% of the world's catch, most of which is essentially unassessed. Although fisheries in these regions could not be included in the analyses, the paper's authors conclude that lessons learned can equally apply to data-limited fisheries: Greater investment in fisheries management systems is expected to lead to better outcomes for the fish populations upon which our fisheries are based.

INFORMATION:

A full list of paper co-authors is available in the paper. This research was funded by The Nature Conservancy, The Wildlife Conservation Society, the Walton Family Foundation and a consortium of Seattle fishing companies.

For more information, contact Melnychuk at mmel@uw.edu.


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
More management measures lead to healthier fish populations

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

ALMA captures distant colliding galaxy dying out as it loses the ability to form stars

ALMA captures distant colliding galaxy dying out as it loses the ability to form stars
2021-01-11
Galaxies begin to "die" when they stop forming stars, but until now astronomers had never clearly glimpsed the start of this process in a far-away galaxy. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, astronomers have seen a galaxy ejecting nearly half of its star-forming gas. This ejection is happening at a startling rate, equivalent to 10 000 Suns-worth of gas a year -- the galaxy is rapidly losing its fuel to make new stars. The team believes that this spectacular event was triggered by a collision with another ...

More than just a sun tan: Ultraviolet light helps marine animals to tell the time of year

More than just a sun tan: Ultraviolet light helps marine animals to tell the time of year
2021-01-11
Most organisms on earth depend on the energy from the sun. Sunlight is also an important coordinator of life's timers. Animals take important cues for proliferation, activity, feeding, or sleep from changing light conditions. These rhythms also exist in humans - as changing light conditions across the year can strongly impact human mood and psychology. Part of the natural light from the sun we are exposed to consists of ultraviolet (UVA and UVB) light, a short-wavelength part of the spectrum that is largely missing in artificial lighting. So far, most research on seasonal cycles has focused on daylength. "In contrast to previous assumptions, we discovered that, in addition to daylength, the intensity of UVA light influences the seasonal responses of the bristle worm ...

Galaxy mergers could limit star formation

2021-01-11
Astronomers have looked nine billion years into the past to find evidence that galaxy mergers in the early universe could shut down star formation and affect galaxy growth. New research led by Durham University, UK, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA)-Saclay and the University of Paris-Saclay, shows that a huge amount of star-forming gas was ejected into the intergalactic medium by the coming together of two galaxies. The researchers say that this event, together with a large amount of star formation in the nuclear regions ...

Researchers use LRZ HPC resources to perform largest-ever supersonic turbulence simulation

Researchers use LRZ HPC resources to perform largest-ever supersonic turbulence simulation
2021-01-11
Through the centuries, scientists and non-scientists alike have looked at the night sky and felt excitement, intrigue, and overwhelming mystery while pondering questions about how our universe came to be, and how humanity developed and thrived in this exact place and time. Early astronomers painstakingly studied stars' subtle movements in the night sky to try and determine how our planet moves in relation to other celestial bodies. As technology has increased, so too has our understanding of how the universe works and our relative position within it. What remains a mystery, however, is a more detailed understanding of how stars and planets formed in the first place. Astrophysicists and cosmologists understand that the movement of materials across the interstellar medium (ISM) helped ...

COVID-19 drug prospects boosted by discovery of short form of coronavirus's 'entry point'

2021-01-11
A shadow over the promising inhaled interferon beta COVID-19 therapy has been cleared with the discovery that although it appears to increase levels of ACE2 protein - coronavirus' key entry point into nose and lung cells - it predominantly increases levels of a short version of that protein, which the virus cannot bind to. The virus that causes COVID-19, known as SARS-CoV-2, enters nose and lung cells through binding of its spike protein to the cell surface protein angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Now a new, short, form of ACE2 has been identified by Professor Jane Lucas, Professor Donna Davies, Dr Gabrielle Wheway and Dr Vito Mennella at the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. The study, published in Nature Genetics, shows ...

Nurse involvement promotes discussion of advanced care planning during office visits

2021-01-11
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Jan. 11, 2021 - Most doctors would agree that advanced care planning (ACP) for patients, especially older adults, is important in providing the best and most appropriate health care over the course of a patient's life. Unfortunately, the subject seldom comes up during regular clinic visits. In a study conducted by doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Health, only 3.7% of primary care physicians had this conversation with their patients as part of their normal care. Yet in the same study, the researchers found that a new approach involving specially trained nurses substantially increased the frequency of doctors initiating ACP discussions with their patients. The study is published ...

Landmark human study is first to reveal strong links between gut microbes, diet and health

2021-01-11
Diets rich in certain plant-based foods are linked with the presence of gut microbes that are associated with a lower risk of developing conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to recent results from a large-scale international study that included researchers from King's College London, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the University of Trento, Italy, and health science start-up company ZOE. Key Takeaways The largest and most detailed study of its kind uncovered strong links between a person's diet, the microbes ...

Inspired by kombucha tea, engineers create "living materials"

2021-01-11
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Engineers at MIT and Imperial College London have developed a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast similar to the "kombucha mother" used to ferment tea. Using this mixture, also called a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), the researchers were able to produce cellulose embedded with enzymes that can perform a variety of functions, such as sensing environmental pollutants. They also showed that they could incorporate yeast directly into the material, creating "living materials" that could ...

Trained medical staff can perform safe, effective hernia surgery

Trained medical staff can perform safe, effective hernia surgery
2021-01-11
Many Sub-Saharan countries have a desperate shortage of surgeons, and to ensure that as many patients as possible can be treated, some operations are carried out by medical professionals who are not specialists in surgery. This approach, called task sharing, is supported by the World Health Organisation, but the practice remains controversial. Now a team of medical researchers from Norway, Sweden, Sierra Leone and the Netherlands shows that groin hernia operations performed by associate clinicians, who are trained medical personnel but not doctors, are just as safe and effective as those performed by doctors. The study has been published in JAMA Network Open. "The study showed ...

Clinical trial of antibiotic strategies for uncomplicated acute appendicitis

2021-01-11
What The Study Did: This randomized clinical trial compares the effects of two antibiotic strategies (oral moxifloxacin versus intravenous ertapenem followed by oral levofloxacin) on hospital discharge without surgery and recurrent appendicitis over one year among adults presenting to the emergency department with uncomplicated acute appendicitis. Authors: Paulina Salminen, M.D., Ph.D., of Turku University Hospital in Turku, Finland, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2020.23525) Editor's ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

Alcohol makes male flies sexy

TB patients globally often incur "catastrophic costs" of up to $11,329 USD, despite many countries offering free treatment, with predominant drivers of cost being hospitalization and loss of income

Study links teen girls’ screen time to sleep disruptions and depression

Scientists unveil starfish-inspired wearable tech for heart monitoring

Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

AI effectively predicts dementia risk in American Indian/Alaska Native elders

First guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis calls for changes in practice to improve outcomes

Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

Pinning down the process of West Nile virus transmission

UTA-backed research tackles health challenges across ages

In pancreatic cancer, a race against time

Targeting FGFR2 may prevent or delay some KRAS-mutated pancreatic cancers

[Press-News.org] More management measures lead to healthier fish populations