Real, E., Tavecchia, G., Genovart, M., Sanz-Aguilar, A., Payo-Payo, A. and Oro, D. 2018 Discard-ban policies can help improve our understanding of the ecological role of food availability to seabirds Scientia Marina. Special Issue. Discards regulation vs Mediterranean fisheries sustainability. M. Demestre and F. Maynou (eds.) doi: 10.3989/scimar.04746.10A
Abstract: Discards from fisheries are the most important predictable anthropogenic
food subsidies (PAFS) that are being incorporated into marine
ecosystems. Changes on their availability and predictability can help us
to understand the role that food availability (i.e. an important
indicator of the carrying capacity) plays at different ecological
levels, from individual fitness to community dynamic and ecosystem
functioning. For several reasons, seabirds are an excellent model for
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| Photo: J. Bos |
evaluating the ecological effects arising from a lack of discards: 1)
they are one of the most important discard scavengers, 2) they are easy
to monitor and 3) they are apical predators are globally distributed,
which makes them suitable health indicators of ecosystems. Here we
review the existing information on seabird-discard interactions to
identify the main knowledge gaps and propose new challenges for
improving our understanding of the general role of food availability. We
conclude that the new policies on the ban of fishery discards that are
being progressively implemented in the European Union, Norway, Chile and
New Zealand offer a suitable experimental scenario for improving our
understanding of how a large decrease in the carrying capacity may alter
demographic parameters such as survival, dispersal and reproduction,
the resilience of populations against perturbations and the role of
individual specialization in the foraging process.
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