Enhancing fish Underwater Visual Census to move forward assessment of fish assemblages: An application in three Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas.

ABSTRACT: Monitoring fish assemblages is needed to assess whether Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are meeting their conservation and fisheries management goals, as it allows one to track the progress of recovery of exploited species and associated communities. Underwater Visual Census techniques (UVC) are used to monitor fish assemblages in MPAs. UVCs should be adapted to fish abundance, body-size and behaviour, which can strongly affect fish detectability. In Mediterranean subtidal habitats, however, UVC strip transects of one surface area (25x5 m2) are commonly used to survey the whole fish assemblage, from large shy fish to small crypto-benthic fish. Most high trophic level predators (HTLPs) are large shy fish which rarely swim close to divers and, consequently, their abundance may be under-estimat

SUBMITTER: Prato G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5464568 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature