Historical dynamics of the demersal fish community in the East and South China Seas
Jin Gao
A E F , James T. Thorson B , Cody Szuwalski C and Hui-Yu Wang D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA.
B Fisheries Resource Assessment and Monitoring Division, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, Seattle, WA 98112, USA.
C Sustainable Fisheries Group, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
D Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan.
E Present address: Centre for Fisheries and Ecosystems Research, Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Saint John’s, NL, A1A 5R3, Canada.
F Corresponding author. Email: jin.gao@mi.mun.ca
Marine and Freshwater Research 71(9) 1073-1085 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF18472
Submitted: 11 December 2018 Accepted: 11 October 2019 Published: 14 January 2020
Abstract
Taiwan has a long history of fishery operations and contributes significantly to the global fishery harvest. The East and South China seas are important fishing grounds for which publicly available data are very limited. More efforts are needed to digitise and analyse historical catch rate data to illuminate species and community changes in this region. In this study we digitised historical records of catch and effort from government fishery reports for nine commercial species caught by otter trawl, and reported quarterly from 1970 to 2001, from the East and South China seas. We analysed the four seasons and present abundance indices, distributions and among-species correlations for nine commercially important species from 1970 to 1988 (a period with high fishing effort) using a multispecies spatiotemporal model that estimates both covariation in multispecies catch rates, attributed to spatial habitat preferences and environmental responses, and indices representing trends in abundance and distribution. We found substantial spatial, temporal and spatiotemporal variation in the distribution of fishes and season-specific patterns. We recommend collaborative work from various adjacent countries to digitise historical records of fishing catch rates, because more records would potentially address scientific disagreements regarding trends in the abundance and distribution of commercial fishes in this region through comparative studies.
Additional keywords: catch per unit effort, CPUE, digitised data, fishery catch per unit effort.
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