Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale, 80121, Naples, Italy; Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixões, Matosinhos, Portugal.
Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixões, Matosinhos, Portugal; Departamento de Ecología y Biología Animal, Universidad de Vigo, Campus As Lagoas-Marcosende, Vigo (Pontevedra), Spain.
Mar Environ Res. 2018 Oct;141:247-254. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2018.09.017. Epub 2018 Sep 14.
Paracentrotus lividus is a common and intensely harvested sea urchin at several European locations, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The increasing human pressure on this resource due to the growing demand and market value of sea urchin gonads as seafood raises concerns on the ecological sustainability of present fisheries, which are showing a technological improvement and an expansion towards previously non-harvested areas. We examined the abundance of P. lividus of both commercial and non-commercial size before, during and after the harvesting season (from October to April) in the rocky shallow subtidal habitat along the northern Portuguese coast. The abundance of commercial (≥50 mm in test diameter) P. lividus individuals increased in the harvesting season, but drastically dropped by about 90% in the after-harvesting period. Such a pattern was consistent among three rocky shores spanning about 65 km of coast. The multivariate population structure and most size classes of non-commercial sea urchins did not differ depending on the period. The only exception was Class 4 (test diameter between 30 and 40 mm), which was more abundant in the harvesting than in the before- and, further, the after-harvesting period, but only at one shore. Very small (Class 1, test diameter below 10 mm) urchins were never found. The present findings suggest that human harvesting may cause considerable reductions in the abundance of target P. lividus, but that such an effect would not be evident concomitantly with harvesting, but in the subsequent period. Even if just under a precautionary principle, protection strategies focused on sea urchin populations and the harvesting period are advisable to contribute to maintain a sustainable local fishery of P. lividus populations that are likely to be negatively affected also by other natural and anthropogenic perturbations.
扁形动物是一种常见的、在欧洲多个地区（包括地中海和伊比利亚半岛的大西洋沿岸）被大量捕捞的海胆。由于人们对海胆生殖腺作为海鲜的需求不断增加，市场价值不断上升，这种资源所承受的人类压力越来越大，这引发了人们对目前渔业生态可持续性的担忧，因为这些渔业正在进行技术改进，并向以前未捕捞的地区扩张。我们在葡萄牙北部沿海的浅岩潮间带栖息地，在商业和非商业大小的扁形动物收获季节（从 10 月到 4 月）之前、期间和之后，检查了它们的丰度。商业大小（测试直径大于等于 50 毫米）的扁形动物个体的丰度在收获季节增加，但在收获后急剧下降了约 90%。这种模式在跨越约 65 公里海岸的三个岩石海岸上都是一致的。非商业海胆的多变量种群结构和大多数大小类群在不同时期没有差异。唯一的例外是第 4 类（测试直径在 30 毫米至 40 毫米之间），它在收获期比在收获前和收获后更为丰富，但仅在一个海岸上如此。从未发现过非常小的（第 1 类，测试直径小于 10 毫米）海胆。目前的研究结果表明，人类捕捞可能会导致目标扁形动物数量的大量减少，但这种影响不会与捕捞同时发生，而是在随后的时期发生。即使只是在预防原则下，以扁形动物种群和捕捞期为重点的保护策略也是明智的，这有助于维持扁形动物种群的可持续地方渔业，因为这些种群也可能受到其他自然和人为干扰的负面影响。
