The Plymouth Student Scientist
Document Type
Special Interest Article
Abstract
The worldwide depletion and collapse of major fish stocks through intensive industrial fishing has raised many concerns about the sustainability of current fishing practices and the effectiveness of existing management measures (Christensen et al., 2003; Baum and Worm, 2009; O’Leary et al., 2011). Long-term data series such as fishery statistics have been analysed extensively in recent decades to assess changes in fish populations and ecological communities (Pauly et al., 2001; Pinnegar et al. 2002; Pauly and Chuenpagdee, 2003). Since Pauly et al.’s (1998) pioneering work, the phenomenon of “Fishing Down Marine Food Webs” has been investigated worldwide. The trend for fisheries shifting towards much smaller species found lower in the food chain as predatory species have been depleted has been demonstrated in many marine regions around the world through declines in the mean Trophic Level (mTL) of fisheries landings (Table 1). A study by the authors focused on the English Channel, a region with a long history of human exploitation where this assessment has never been performed before...
Publication Date
2014-12-01
Publication Title
The Plymouth Student Scientist
Volume
7
Issue
2
First Page
212
Last Page
216
ISSN
1754-2383
Deposit Date
May 2019
Embargo Period
2024-07-03
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Molfese, Carlotta; Beare, Doug; and Hall-Spencer, Jason M.
(2014)
"OPINION: Overfishing and the replacement of demersal finfish by shellfish: an example from the English Channel,"
The Plymouth Student Scientist: Vol. 7:
Iss.
2, Article 12.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24382/cfd2-am34
Available at:
https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/tpss/vol7/iss2/12