Community size-spectra applied to recreational freshwater fisheries in Puerto Rican reservoirs

Brent A. Murry; María de Lourdes Olmeda; Craig Lilyestrom; Daniel S. Adams; Katherine Adase; Miguel García-Bermudez

doi:10.1111/fme.12671

Community size-spectra applied to recreational freshwater fisheries in Puerto Rican reservoirs

Brent A. Murry, María de Lourdes Olmeda, Craig Lilyestrom, Daniel S. Adams, Katherine Adase, Miguel García-Bermudez

Human Geography

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We developed a management framework based on community size-spectra (CSS) to establish targets to maximize desirable gamefish. We evaluated the influence of relative abundance of fish functional groups and watershed characteristics on the slope of the CSS or ecological efficiency. Both ecological efficiency and capacity were strongly influenced by relative abundance of fish functional groups and the degree of water level variation. Steeper slopes indicated overfished gamefish populations, whereas flatter slopes indicated systems dominated by undesirable invasive large-bodied low trophic position fish. We hypothesize that a desirable fishery would have a target range of CSS slopes that provides a deterministic community-based framework of predictable responses to environmental and food web changes that can be used to evaluate outcomes of management actions and a means to assess annual progress toward desirable conditions.

Original language	English
Article number	e12671
Journal	Fisheries Management and Ecology
Volume	31
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/fme.12671
State	Published - Apr 2024

Funding

The authors wish to thank all the past Recursos Naturales (Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources) fish sampling teams, as well as Erin Shepta (WVU), Jack Gonzales (ORNL), anonymous reviewer, and the Editor-in-chief for valuable comments that greatly improved this manuscript. Special thanks go to Dr. Justin Pomeranz who provided excellent feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript and also shared R-code to complete the individual size-spectra (MLE approach). This material is based upon work that was partially supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, McIntire Stennis project under 1026001 (BAM). There is no other specific funding. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Scientific Article No: 3467 of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Morgantown, WV. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors wish to thank all the past Recursos Naturales (Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources) fish sampling teams, as well as Erin Shepta (WVU), Jack Gonzales (ORNL), anonymous reviewer, and the Editor‐in‐chief for valuable comments that greatly improved this manuscript. Special thanks go to Dr. Justin Pomerantz who provided excellent feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript and also shared R‐code to complete the individual size‐spectra (MLE approach). This material is based upon work that was partially supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, McIntire Stennis project under 1026001 (BAM). There is no other specific funding. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Scientific Article No: 3467 of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Morgantown, WV. This manuscript has been authored by UT‐Battelle, LLC, under contract DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains, and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid‐up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe‐public‐access‐plan ).

Keywords

exotic species
fish functional groups
water level fluctuation
watershed characteristics

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10.1111/fme.12671

Cite this

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title = "Community size-spectra applied to recreational freshwater fisheries in Puerto Rican reservoirs",

abstract = "We developed a management framework based on community size-spectra (CSS) to establish targets to maximize desirable gamefish. We evaluated the influence of relative abundance of fish functional groups and watershed characteristics on the slope of the CSS or ecological efficiency. Both ecological efficiency and capacity were strongly influenced by relative abundance of fish functional groups and the degree of water level variation. Steeper slopes indicated overfished gamefish populations, whereas flatter slopes indicated systems dominated by undesirable invasive large-bodied low trophic position fish. We hypothesize that a desirable fishery would have a target range of CSS slopes that provides a deterministic community-based framework of predictable responses to environmental and food web changes that can be used to evaluate outcomes of management actions and a means to assess annual progress toward desirable conditions.",

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author = "Murry, {Brent A.} and Olmeda, {Mar{\'i}a de Lourdes} and Craig Lilyestrom and Adams, {Daniel S.} and Katherine Adase and Miguel Garc{\'i}a-Bermudez",

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AB - We developed a management framework based on community size-spectra (CSS) to establish targets to maximize desirable gamefish. We evaluated the influence of relative abundance of fish functional groups and watershed characteristics on the slope of the CSS or ecological efficiency. Both ecological efficiency and capacity were strongly influenced by relative abundance of fish functional groups and the degree of water level variation. Steeper slopes indicated overfished gamefish populations, whereas flatter slopes indicated systems dominated by undesirable invasive large-bodied low trophic position fish. We hypothesize that a desirable fishery would have a target range of CSS slopes that provides a deterministic community-based framework of predictable responses to environmental and food web changes that can be used to evaluate outcomes of management actions and a means to assess annual progress toward desirable conditions.

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Community size-spectra applied to recreational freshwater fisheries in Puerto Rican reservoirs

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