Change in the dominance structure of two marine-fish assemblages over three decades
Abstract
Marine fish are an irreplaceable resource but are currently under threat due to overfishing and climate change. To date, most of the emphasis has been on single stocks or populations of economic importance. However, commercially valuable species are embedded in assemblages of many species and there is only limited understanding of the extent to which the structure of whole communities has altered in recent years. Most assemblages are dominated by one or a few species, with these highly abundant species underpinning ecosystem services and harvesting decisions. This paper shows that there have been marked temporal changes in the dominance structure of Scottish marine assemblages over the last three decades, where dominance is measured as the proportional numerical abundance of the most dominant species. We report contrasting patterns in both the identity of the dominant species, and shifts in the relative abundance of the dominant in assemblages to the east and west of Scotland. This result highlights the importance of multi-species analyses of harvested stocks and has implications not only for fisheries management but also for consumer choices.
Citation
Moyes , F & Magurran , A E 2019 , ' Change in the dominance structure of two marine-fish assemblages over three decades ' , Journal of Fish Biology , vol. 94 , no. 1 , pp. 96-102 . https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.13868
Publication
Journal of Fish Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0022-1112Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018, The Fisheries Society of the British Isles. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher's policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/jfb.13868
Description
Funding: FM and AEM are grateful to the European Research Council (ERCAdG BioTIME 250189 and ERCPoC BioCHANGE 727440).Collections
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