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Yield per Recruit and Management Recommendations for Alaska Plaice in the Eastern Bering Sea
Author(s) -
Zhang Chang Ik,
Gunderson Donald R.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
north american journal of fisheries management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1548-8675
pISSN - 0275-5947
DOI - 10.1577/1548-8675(1990)010<0001:ypramr>2.3.co;2
Subject(s) - fishing , fishery , sustainable yield , maximum sustainable yield , juvenile , stock assessment , stock (firearms) , yield (engineering) , pleuronectes , fisheries management , environmental science , continental shelf , biology , oceanography , geography , ecology , fish <actinopterygii> , geology , archaeology , materials science , metallurgy
Adult Alaska plaice Pleuronectes quadrituberculatus are abundant over the continental shelf (40–110‐m depths) during the summer, move to the outer shelf during the winter, and return to the shelf in spring. Female Alaska plaice mature at a total length of about 31 cm (6–7 years), and peak spawning occurs during April. Juvenile Alaska plaice are restricted to shallow coastal areas (<25 m deep) and are not encountered in significant numbers in either resource surveys or the commercial fishery. Ratios of body girth to mesh sizes currently used show that recruitment size is determined by the spatial distribution of fishing effort rather than mesh size. The current size at recruitment (31 cm) corresponds to the size at which 50% of females reach maturity. The F 0.1 criterion–the fishing mortality that results in a marginal increase in yield/fishing mortality that is 10% of the value for a lightly exploited stock–provides a reasonable approach to management of the Alaska plaice fishery because, at the current recruitment age (6–7 years), it would produce 93% of the maximum sustainable yield per recruit with only 19% of the fishing effort required to produce the maximum sustainable yield per recruit. Estimated F 0.1 for the current age at recruitment is 0.23–0.25/year and agrees closely with the estimate (0.23/year) of fishing mortality at maximum sustainable yield ( F MSY ) obtained with a production model.