title: Spatial assessment of fishing effort around European marine reserves: implications for successful fisheries management.
abstract: We examined the spatial dynamic of artisanal fishing fleets around five European marine protected areas (MPAs) to derive general implications for the evaluation of MPAs as fisheries management tools. The coastal MPAs studied were located off France, Malta and Spain and presented a variety of spatial designs and processes of establishment. We developed a standardized methodology to define factors influencing effort allocation and to produce fishing effort maps by merging GIS with geostatistical modelling techniques. Results revealed that in most cases the factors "distance to the no-take", "water depth", and "distance to the port" had a significant influence on effort allocation by the fishing fleets. Overall, we found local concentration of fishing effort around the MPA borders. Thus, neglecting the pattern of fishing effort distribution in evaluating MPA benefits, such as spillover of biomass, could hamper sound interpretation of MPAs as fisheries management tools.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. vanessa.stelzenmuller@cefas.co.uk
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Stelzenmüller
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Maynou
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: Gwenaël
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cadiou
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Camilleri
authors.forename: Romain
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Crec'hriou
authors.forename: Géraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Criquet
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dimech
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Esparza
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lenfant
authors.forename: Angel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pérez-Ruzafa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005060:Europe; D005398:Fisheries; D008522:Mediterranean Sea; D009792:Oceans and Seas