Assessment of goose barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes Gmelin, 1789) stocks in management plans: Design of a sampling program based on the harvesters' experience

Abstract

Management plans of coastal marine resources require a wealth of information on socioeconomic topics, harvesting activities, population dynamics, and stock status. Moreover, the information provided by technical experts must take into account the needs of the managers. It must also adapt to schedules to serve a useful purpose. In many cases, the methodologies used by research teams are not directly applicable as they may be too complicated, aimed at specific objectives related to basic scientific work, or too costly to apply to long-term monitoring of extensive shellfish beds. Also, rocky coastlines exposed to heavy wave action preclude the use of sampling techniques that involve time-consuming data collection. This paper proposes a quick and simple methodology for gathering data in the field, based on the knowledge of the harvesters, to obtain stock assessments in keeping with their information needs. This methodology uses coverage percentage as an abundance index and weighting factor for the biometric information gathered from 50 specimens in each sampling. The sampling design uses the knowledge of the harvesters to define homogeneous strata. The results are in agreement with both the scientific-technical knowledge and the harvesters' knowledge of the populations being analysed. © 2012 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.