Coastal Heritage

The South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium publishes Coastal Heritage, a quarterly publication that covers environmental policy, science, history, and culture.

Coastal Heritage

The South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium publishes Coastal Heritage, a quarterly publication that covers environmental policy, science, history, and culture.

Coastal Heritage

The South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium publishes Coastal Heritage, a quarterly publication that covers environmental policy, science, history, and culture.

Coastal Heritage

The South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium publishes Coastal Heritage, a quarterly publication that covers environmental policy, science, history, and culture.

Assessment of catches, landings and fishing effort as useful tools for MPA management

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been widely recognized as a tool to achieve both fisheries management and conservation goals. Simultaneously achieving these multiple goals is difficult due to conflicts between conservation (often long-term) and economic (often short-term) objectives. MPA implementation often includes additional control measures on fisheries (e.g. vessel size restrictions, gear exclusion, catch controls) that in the short-term may have impacts on local fishers' communities. Thus, monitoring fisheries catches before, during and after MPA implementation is essential to document changes in fisheries activities and to evaluate the impact of MPAs in fishers' communities. Remarkably, in contrast with standard fisheries-independent biological surveys, these data are rarely measured at appropriate spatial scales following MPA implementation. Here, the effects of MPA implementation on local fisheries are assessed in a temperate MPA (Arrabida Marine Park, Portugal), using fisheries monitoring methods combining spatial distribution of fishing effort, on-board observations and official landings statistics at scales appropriate to the Marine Park. Fisheries spatial distribution, fishing effort, on-board data collection and official landings registered for the same vessels over time were analysed between 2004 and 2010. The applicability and reliability of using landings statistics alone was tested (i.e. when no sampling data are available) and we conclude that landings data alone only allow the identification of general patterns. The combination of landings information (which is known to be unreliable in many coastal communities) with other methods, provides an effective tool to evaluate fisheries dynamics in response to MPA implementation. As resources for monitoring socio-ecological responses to MPAs are frequently scarce, the use of landings data calibrated with fisheries information (from vessels, gear distribution and on-board data) is a valuable tool applicable to many worldwide coastal small-scale fisheries. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Movements of Diplodus sargus (Sparidae) within a Portuguese coastal Marine Protected Area: Are they really protected?

Mark-recapture tagging and acoustic telemetry were used to study the movements of Diplodus sargus within the Pessegueiro Island no-take Marine Protected Area (MPA), (Portugal) and assess its size adequacy for this species' protection against fishing activities. Therefore, 894 Diplodus sargus were captured and marked with conventional plastic t-bar tags. At the same time, 19 D. sargus were tagged with acoustic transmitters and monitored by 20 automatic acoustic receivers inside the no-take MPA for 60 days. Recapture rate of conventionally tagged specimens was 3.47%, most occurring during subsequent marking campaigns. One individual however was recaptured by recreational fishermen near Faro (ca. 250 km from the tagging location) 6 months after release. Furthermore, three specimens were recaptured in October 2013 near releasing site, one year after being tagged. Regarding acoustic telemetry, 18 specimens were detected by the receivers during most of the study period. To analyse no-take MPA use, the study site was divided into five areas reflecting habitat characteristics, three of which were frequently used by the tagged fish: Exterior, Interior Protected and Interior Exposed areas. Information on no-take protected area use was also analysed according to diel and tidal patterns. Preferred passageways and permanence areas were identified and high site fidelity was confirmed. The interaction between tide and time of day influenced space use patterns, with higher and more variable movements during daytime and neap tides. This no-take MPA proved to be an important refuge and feeding area for this species, encompassing most of the home ranges of tagged specimens. Therefore, it is likely that this no-take MPA is of adequate size to protect D. sargus against fishing activities, thus contributing to its sustainable management in the region.

Health information management : What business are we in?

Developments in information technology will drive the change in records management; however, it should be the health information managers who drive the information management change. The role of health information management will be challenged to use information technology to broker a range of requests for information from a variety of users, including he alth consumers. The purposes of this paper are to conceptualise the role of health information management in the context of a technologically driven and managed health care environment, and to demonstrat e how this framework has been used to review and develop the undergraduate program in health information management at the Queensland University of Technology.