Effectiveness of Adaptive Real-Time Closures for Managing Migratory Species in Data-Limited Multispecies Fisheries

Abstract

Fixed closure (FC) is a standard fisheries management tool for protecting sensitive species or species requiring conservation. However, an FC might not effectively manage migratory species because of the large uncertainties of their migration. Adaptive real-time closure (ARTC) is a tool that updates closure areas according to the latest information. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of ARTC to conserve sensitive species for data-limited fisheries by a series of simulations using migration models with hotspots. In the single species simulation, the conservation ratio for the sensitive species in FC varies widely at greater migration uncertainty. In ARTC, a longer duration of a hotspot resulted in a higher conservation ratio. When the mean duration of hotspots was medium or long, the conservation ratio for the sensitive species was more than 50 % in more than 99 % of the simulation trials. In multispecies fisheries, a clear trade-off was observed between the conservation ratio of sensitive species and other species. ARTC was more effective than whole closure when the proportion of sensitive species was high or without closure when the proportion was low. Conditions in which ARTC was most appropriate were described for hotspot duration, increased numbers of individuals in a hotspot, and the relative value of conservation, representing the ratio of the value of conserving sensitive species to one of catching other species.