Report of the pollack (Pollachius pollachius) Exchange 2016

In September 2015, the Working Group on Biological Parameters (WGBIOP) recommended the first otolith exchange for Pollachius pollachius in 2016 (Otolith Exchanges proposals for 2016/2017; ICES, 2015). Kélig Mahe (IFREMER, France) was decided to be the responsible to organise this otolith exchange. A total of 5 readers from 2 countries (France & Spain) participated at the exchange of 2016. The otoliths of 314 individuals sampled from 2011 to 2015 in Southern stock (ICES area: IXa; n=99) and in (ICES areas: IVc, VIId, VIIe, VIIj-h; n=215) were used for this exchange. For the Northern stock, the precision values for both stocks were very high but the value for Northern stock (PA=91.6%, CV=3.8%; APE= 0.8%) was higher than this for Southern stock (PA=74.5%, CV=14.9%; APE= 1.9%). There were some differences between readers but there were no difference between Northern stock readers and between Southern stock readers.

Habitat selection and phenotypic diversity in the anchovy of the Bay of Biscay

Diversity among individuals in a population is an important feature linking vital rates with behaviour and spatial occupation. We measured the growth increments in the otolith of individual fishes collected on the annual fisheries survey PELGAS from 2001 to 2015. Individuals who grew larger at juvenile stage occupied later in life more off-shore habitats. Further, we analysed the allozymes of 13 different loci from 2001 to 2006. Alleles of the enzyme IDH showed different frequencies in inshore and offshore habitats. The population spatially segregates along a coast to off-shore gradient with individuals showing different early growth and allele frequencies. Results show how individuals in a population segregate spatially in different habitats in relation with phenotypic diversity. This implies modelling the population with individual-based and physiological approaches to fully grasp its dynamics. It also implies developing management strategies to conserve infra-population diversity as a means to garantee the occupation of the full range of habitats.

Managing Fisheries in the context of an integrated policy: the importance of spatial issues

A variety of conservation policies now frame the management of fishing activity and so do also the spatial planning of different sectorial activities. These framework policies are additional to classical fishery management. There is a risk that the policies applying on the marine system are not coherent from a fisheries point of view. The spatial management of fishing activity at regional scale has the potential to meet multiple management objectives, on a habitat basis. Here we consider how to integrate multiple objectives of different policies into integrated ocean management scenarios. In the EU, European Directives and the CFP are now implementing the ecosystem approach to the management of human activity at sea. In this context, we further identify three research needs: • Develop Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) for multiple-objective and multiple-sector spatial management schemes • Improve knowledge on and evaluation of functional habitats • Develop spatially-explicit end-to-end models with appropriate complexity for spatial MSE The contribution is based on the results of a workshop of the EraNet COFASP.