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Predictive modelling of Atlantic herring distribution in the Northeast Atlantic for informed decision-making. Dataset and calculations
Citable as data publication
Standaert, W.; Musimwa, R.; Stevens, M.; Alonso, J.; Muñiz, C.; Debusschere, E.; Pint, S.; Everaert, G.; Flanders Marine Institute: Belgium; (2024): Predictive modelling of Atlantic herring distribution in the Northeast Atlantic for informed decision-making. Dataset and calculations. Marine Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.14284/657

Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Description

With the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, equal access to the British waters under the Common Fisheries Policy ends. This will likely result in reduced catches for the Belgian fishing fleet that mainly targets demersal fish. Alternative fishing grounds and fishing techniques, such as pelagic fishing, could mitigate such losses. This study aims to help pinpoint where and when pelagic fishing could be reintroduced by looking at the geographical distribution of the targeted fish through different seasons. This was done by developing spatiotemporal species distribution models for adult Atlantic herring, Clupea harengus, an economically important pelagic fish species in the Northeast Atlantic, with specific attention to the implications for the Belgian Part of the North Sea. Maximum entropy (Maxent) models were fitted successfully for adult (AUC of 0.7 and TSS of 0.3) and larval (AUC of 0.9 and TSS of 0.7) life stages of herring. The spatiotemporal distribution of adult herring spans a wide area across the Northeast Atlantic throughout the whole year. Regional differences show that adults are most likely to occur in the Belgian Part of the North Sea during winter months, co-occurring with the presence of their larvae. Interestingly, our study also found a negative correlation (-0.7) between winter habitat suitability for larvae in the Belgian Part of the North Sea and autumn North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices. We anticipate that these results will inform policy makers to seasonally manage fisheries in the Belgian Part of the North Sea and the Northeast Atlantic in general.


Scope
Themes:
Biology, Biology > Ecology - biodiversity, Biology > Fish, Biology > Fish > Pelagic fish, Fisheries
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Distribution modelling, Ecological modeling, EU biodiversity policy, Fisheries development, Fisheries ecosystem, Fisheries policy, Habitat selection, Habitat suitability, Habitat suitability modelling, Marine fauna, Model predictions, North sea herring, Policy planning, Clupea harengus Linnaeus, 1758

Temporal coverage
1 January 2023 - 1 January 2024

Target species
Clupea harengus Linnaeus, 1758 [WoRMS]

Parameter
Biological effect parameters Methodology
Biological effect parameters: Model simulation

Contributors

Related datasets
Parent dataset:
Pelfish: Predictive modelling of the distribution of pelagic fish species in the BPNS, more
Other relation:
Pelfish: Predictive modelling of the distribution of pelagic fish species in the BPNS, more

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Software/models/scripts
Data origin: Research
Metadatarecord created: 2024-02-16
Information last updated: 2024-02-26
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