Paper: Shifts in the estuarine demersal fish community after a fishery closure in Puget Sound, Washington

This paper looks at 21 years of data on estuarine demersal fish in Puget Sound, assessing changes in population after the closure of bottom trawl fisheries.

Rock Sole (Lepidopsetta bilineata); image courtesy Freshwater and Marine Image Bank, University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections
Rock Sole (Lepidopsetta bilineata); image courtesy Freshwater and Marine Image Bank, University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections
Shifts in the estuarine demersal fish community after a fishery closure in Puget Sound, Washington. Published in NOAA Fishery Bulletin 111:205–217 (2013). doi 10.7755/FB.111.3.1

Abstract:

Puget Sound is one of the largest and most ecologically significant estuaries in the United States, but the status and trends of many of its biological components are not well known. We analyzed a 21-year time series of data from standardized bottom trawl sampling at a single study area to provide the first assessment of population trends of Puget Sound groundfishes after the closure of bottom trawl fisheries. The expected increase in abundance was observed for only 3 of 14 species after this closure, and catch rates of most (10) of the abundant species declined through time. Many of these changes were stepwise (abrupt) rather than gradual, and many stocks exhibited changes in catch rate during the 3-year period from 1997 through 2000. No detectable change was recorded for either temperature or surface salinity over the entire sampling period. The abrupt density reductions that were observed likely do not reflect changes in demographic rates but may instead represent distributional shifts within Puget Sound.

Download the full paper: Shifts in the estuarine demersal fish community after a fishery closure in Puget Sound, Washington.

About the Author: 
The authors are affiliated with the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington.