Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4811, Australia.
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4811, Australia.
Mar Environ Res. 2022 May;177:105633. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2022.105633. Epub 2022 Apr 16.
Although hard corals (order Scleractinia) are listed in Appendix II of the Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), there is significant ongoing wild harvest and international trade, mostly for the aquarium industry. Acropora corals account for the majority of aquarium corals harvested and traded, but are also extremely vulnerable to fisheries-independent threats, especially climate-induced coral bleaching. Reconciling effects of coral harvesting is complicated as harvest limits are based on weight, while there is limited data on standing biomass of Acropora from different reef environments. Here, a management-friendly methodology that allows for quantification of Acropora spp. biomass is described and demonstrated, thus providing means for the development and implementation of a rigorous sustainable harvest strategy. We establish size-weight relationships for four growth forms of Acropora spp. harvested from Australia's Great Barrier Reef, to facilitate estimates of harvestable biomass and better understand the ecological context of current weight-based harvest levels and limits. Using these relationships, and field-based sampling at 12 sites across seven distinct reefs, the estimated biomass of Acropora spp. ranges from 0.12 kg ⋅ m to 4.7 kg ⋅ m. These estimates necessitate further consideration of catch composition and the specific abundance of individual species that are heavily harvested, and how impacts of current harvest practices interact with species-specific vulnerability to climate change and other escalating human pressures contributing to the degradation of coral reef ecosystems. This study is a crucial first step towards quantifying the ecological impacts of the fishery to develop management strategies that are underpinned by research.
尽管硬珊瑚（Scleractinia 目）被列入《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》（CITES）附录 II，但仍有大量的野生采集和国际贸易活动在持续进行，主要用于水族馆行业。鹿角珊瑚占被采集和交易的水族馆珊瑚的大部分，但它们也极易受到渔业以外的威胁，尤其是气候引起的珊瑚白化。由于捕捞限制基于重量，而关于不同珊瑚礁环境中鹿角珊瑚的现存量数据有限，因此协调捕捞影响的工作变得复杂。此处描述并演示了一种管理友好型方法，用于量化鹿角珊瑚属的生物量，从而为制定和实施严格的可持续捕捞策略提供了手段。我们建立了从澳大利亚大堡礁采集的四种生长形式的鹿角珊瑚的大小-重量关系，以促进可捕捞生物量的估计，并更好地理解当前基于重量的捕捞水平和限制的生态背景。使用这些关系，以及在七个不同珊瑚礁的 12 个地点进行的实地采样，估计鹿角珊瑚属的生物量范围从 0.12kg ⋅ m 到 4.7kg ⋅ m。这些估计需要进一步考虑渔获物组成以及大量捕捞的个别物种的具体丰度，以及当前捕捞实践的影响如何与物种特有的对气候变化和其他加剧的人类压力的脆弱性相互作用，这些压力正在导致珊瑚礁生态系统的退化。本研究是量化渔业对生态系统影响以制定基于研究的管理策略的重要第一步。
