Newsletter of the Groupers and Wrasses Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature

After a long hiatus, we have finally assembled another newsletter for the Groupers & Wrasses IUCN Specialist group. This would not have possible without the leadership of Áthila Bertoncini, who formatted and compiled all of your contributions, Allen To and João Pedro Barreiros, we are most grateful for everybody’s efforts. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Opportunity for marine fisheries reform in China

China's 13th Five-Year Plan, launched in March 2016, provides a sound policy platform for the protection of marine ecosystems and the restoration of capture fisheries within China's exclusive economic zone. What distinguishes China among many other countries striving for marine fisheries reform is its size- accounting for almost one-fifth of global catch volume-and the unique cultural context of its economic and resource management. In this paper, we trace the history of Chinese government priorities, policies, and outcomes related to marine fisheries since the 1978 Economic Reform, and examine how the current leadership's agenda for "ecological civilization" could successfully transform marine resource management in the coming years. We show how China, like many other countries, has experienced a decline in the average trophic level of its capture fisheries during the past few decades, and how its policy design, implementation, and enforcement have influenced the status of its wild fish stocks. To reverse the trend in declining fish stocks, the government is introducing a series of new programs for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, with greater traceability and accountability in marine resource management and area controls on coastal development. As impressive as these new plans are on paper, we conclude that serious institutional reforms will be needed to achieve a true paradigm shift in marine fisheries management in China. In particular, we recommend new institutions for science-based fisheries management, secure fishing access, policy consistency across provinces, educational programs for fisheries managers, and increasing public access to scientific data.Additional co-authors: Yingqi Zhou, Ping Zhuang, and Rosamond L. Naylo

Fishing for feed in China: Facts, impacts and implications

China is the world's largest capture fisheries and aquaculture producer. Over recent decades, China's domestic marine catch composition has changed markedly, from large volumes of a few high‐valued food species to multiple, small, low‐valued, species, a significant proportion of which is primarily used as animal, especially fish, feed. Despite the growing volume and economic importance of the feed catches, their species composition, catch volumes and socio‐environmental impacts are all poorly understood. Based on a nationwide survey of >800 fishing vessels, and the identification and measurement of >12,000 fish and invertebrate individuals, the present study provides an overview of the feed component of China's domestic marine catch, by volumes, species and sizes, and found it to be substantial and biologically unsustainable. Half of the trawler catch (3 million metric tons, mmt), or 35% of the total catch (4.6 mmt) in China's exclusive economic zone, are now comprised of low‐valued “feed‐grade fish”. The present study identified 218 fish species, 50 crustaceans and five cephalopods, and of these, 102 fish species were food species with 89% individuals in their juvenile size ranges. Feed‐grade fish were mainly used as aquaculture feed directly, or indirectly, through the feed industry after reduction to fishmeal and fish oil. The unparalleled scale and poor fisheries resource condition of China's domestic marine fisheries, in parallel with severe overfishing of juveniles, creates a demand for fundamental changes to fishery management practices, including a significant reduction of fishing effort to ensure productivity and ecosystem resilience

A Fishery Manager's Guidebook, Second Edition

A Fishery Managers' Guidebook was first published as an FAO Fisheries Technical Paper in 2002 to meet the need for information and guidance on the broad and often complex task of fisheries management. Based on subsequent experience and feedback gained from publication of the first edition, this new volume, has been expanded to provide broader coverage of the key elements of the task and updated in order to keep track of the rapid developments in theory and practice as academics and practitioners struggle to confront the many challenges facing modern fisheries management

Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard

Forehead Morphology of the Humphead Wrasse Cheilinus undulatus (Perciformes: Labridae) in Relation to Body Size

SBS, The University of Hong KongThe distinctive hump on the forehead of large individuals of the Humphead Wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus, a protogynous hermaphroditic reef fish, is often assumed to be a male-associated secondary sexual characteristic, but this has never been evaluated. A unique opportunity arose to obtain confiscated specimens, 161 females and 17 males, ranging in body sizes from 20.8 to 129.0 cm total length (TL), making this evaluation possible for the first time. The hump was quantified in terms of its maximum angle of elevation, and its development was determined to be size-associated. A notable hump was recorded in 16 females and all 17 males, becoming visible around 37.0 cm TL, and all specimens >= 75.0 cm TL exhibited a distinctive hump, irrespective of sex. There was a linear and positive correlation between body size and maximum angle of hump elevation for both sexes; males tended to have larger humps because they were larger in body size rather than because of sexual dimorphism for hump development. The development of a cephalic hump or a horn on the forehead has been documented in several groups of reef fishes, and its possible adaptive significance in different groups is discussed

Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from the camouflage grouper, Epinephelus polyphekadion (Epinephelidae)

We report the isolation and development of 12 novel microsatellite loci for the reef-associated camouflage grouper, Epinephelus polyphekadion, a near-threatened grouper which is widely distributed, little managed, and heavily fished throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The number of alleles ranged from two to 11. No evidence of linkage disequilibrium was found among loci, but two of the loci showed significant departure from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. These microsatellite loci will be useful for assessing population genetic structure and monitoring genetic diversity of the species

Phylogeography and Conservation Biogeography of the Humphead Wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus

The Humphead wrasse (also known as the Napoleon fish), Cheilinus undulatus, is a highly prized coral reef fish, listed on CITES Appendix II and endangered on the IUCN Red List. It is widespread across much of the Indo-Pacific region. The fish has a 4-6 week pelagic egg and larval stage, suggesting the potential for high connectivity among populations. However, its range spans important biogeographic boundaries that are associated with barriers to gene flow and deep phylogeographic structure in some marine fishes and invertebrates, raising the possibility of significant population genetic structure. We describe preliminarily the genetic structure of the Humphead wrasse across much of its range and consider the implications for effective conservation. Using mitochondrial DNA sequencing (cytochrome b and control region) coupled with microsatellite analyses, we find primarily a signal of eurymixis — i.e., low, heterogeneous population genetic differentiation across much of the species’ range (F ST analogs: <0.11 cytochrome b, <0.09 control region, <0.02 microsatellites) with the exception of modest differentiation primarily toward the peripheries (e.g., Pohnpei, Seychelles; F ST analogs: 0.03–0.24 cytochrome b, 0.05–0.24 control region, 0.03–0.22 microsatellites) — though isolation by distance is not excluded. The general dearth of structure is consistent with population expansion, following an historical bottleneck and with high contemporary gene flow. The implications are that Humphead wrasse is a metapopulation and that its conservation status depends on successful management of a sufficient but currently unknown number and distribution of populations across a multi-national network

Population Genetic Structure of A Marine Pelagic Egg Producer and Popular Marine Aquarium Species, the Mandarinfish Synchiropus splendidus

International audienceThe mandarinfish Synchiropus splendidus is extensively collected in Southeast Asia (mainly in the Philippines) and highly favoured for the marine aquarium trade. Males are more popular than females for their large first dorsal fins and the fishery is not managed. To examine possible population replenishment dynamics arising as a result of selective fishing, the effects of sex-selective fishing on sex ratios and population connectivity were considered. This study determined the sex ratios and analyzed the population genetic structure from mandarinfish collected at six locations: one from Palau, where the species is not exploited, and five from Bohol in the Philippines, where the species has long been heavily fished. The findings reported very low male to female ratios (0.12 to 0.30) from four of the five locations in Bohol, with relatively more males to females in the specimens collected from Palau (2.3). The analyses from allozymes (43 alleles from 10 loci) and microsatellites (118 alleles from 5 loci) revealed that genetic connectivity was high among the five locations in the Philippines as well as with the specimens collected from the more-distant Palau. The genetic homogeneity observed across the geographical range considered is inconsistent with the hypothesized limited dispersal ability of the species and could be explained by recent species range expansion associated with sea level rise in the region. The results suggest that the present genetic structure, at least in the geographic region considered, may not be determined by current patterns of gene flow, but may, instead, be driven by recent sea-level changes associated with periods of glaciation. Caution is suggested to ensure that heavily localized fishing does not produce excessively biased adult sex ratios

Fisheries Centre research reports, Vol. 30, no. 3

The global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has significant potential to help improve the population status of wild animals and plants subject to international trade, and thus to help reconcile conservation of these species with sustainable use.Science, Faculty ofNon UBCOceans and Fisheries, Institute for theUnreviewedFacultyResearcherOthe