Biological Features
The presence of large females is extremely important to the spawning stock. Photo © Julie Jones
Protecting spawning aggregations contributes to biodiversity conservation and fishery management. As mentioned elsewhere in this toolkit, the life history of certain species increases their vulnerability to overfishing. Depending on the objectives of local or regional management bodies, FSAs should be evaluated for their biological importance using answers to the following questions, bearing in mind life history traits, if known:
- Is the site a multi-species or single-species FSA?
- How many and which species are aggregating, and when?
- Are aggregations of vulnerable, endangered, or endemic species among those at the site?
- How many individual fish of key species for commercial activity, for subsistence, or of biological importance are spawning at the site?
- How often do the species spawn (e.g., monthly, seasonally)?
- From known or published information, how many spawning days a year does the species spawn (or how many days is it likely to spawn)?
- Does the species use migratory corridors to reach the FSA site and are these being accessed by fishing interests?
- Are the species in the identified FSA known to be vulnerable to aggregation fishing elsewhere within their distributional range?
- If known, what is the reproductive pattern of the aggregating species (e.g., gonochoristic, hermaphroditic)?
Using these biological and life history criteria, managers can decide which aggregations, and which species, likely require additional or immediate monitoring and management attention. Further information may be needed to address these questions, such as published material. Some of the methods used to obtain this type of information are presented in Monitoring Tools.