ICES Newsletter - April 2021

FEATURE–Tributyltin: the story of a hidden bottom-up killer of the Crangon crangon population – A retrospective analysis in an ecosystem context.

Kris Cooreman, ILVO and member of the Working Group on Biological Effects of Contaminants presents a population-level endocrine disruption by TBT that may have interfered unnoticed for the past 60 years of Crangon crangon’s life history and almost the entire history of its recorded fisheries.

In Eye on the Experts, we meet some of the early career scientists that are members of ICES expert groups and find out what they do.In this episode,we meet Fedor Lishchenko, member of the Working Group on Cephalopod Fisheries and Life History.

Small pelagic fish account for more than 30% by weight of the total landings of capture fisheries around the world. SPF populations of both marine and inland ecosystems are crucial for ensuring global food security. SPF also play an important role in the transfer of energy in food webs through mid-trophic levels, so understanding processes affecting the dynamics of their populations, their role in marine ecosystems and how these shape robust management practices continues to be a high priority.

The international symposium on “Small Pelagic Fish: New Frontiers in Science for Sustainable Management” will highlight the state-of-the-art in these and other topics related to the ecology and sustainable management of small pelagic fish. The symposium complements collaborative research conducted by the joint ICES/PICES Working Group on Small Pelagic Fish and is relevant to the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, particularly “to bolster scientific research for a sustainably harvested ocean ensuring the provision of food supply.”

Click here to find out more about all upcoming ICES symposia.

Upcoming workshops
ICES workshops are open to all  interested individuals.
Click on the workshop name for more informatiions

Workshop on the production of swept area estimates for all hauls in DATRAS for biodiversity assessments (WKSAE_DATRAS)
31 May–4 June 2021

Workshop on Estimation of Commercial Catches I – Ratio estimators (WKRATIO)
31 May–4 June 2021

Workshop on Age reading of Sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) (WKARDL2)

6–10 June 2021 

Third Workshop on Populating the RDBES data model (WKRDB-POP3)

14–18 June 2021

Workshop on Stakeholder Engagement Strategy (WKSHOES)

22–24 June 2021

Workshop 2 on the identification of clupeid larvae (WKIDCLUP2)

1–3 September 2021

Workshop on estimation of MOrtality of Marine MAmmals due to Bycatch (WKMOMA)

26–27 September 2021

In Other Words

What are vulnerable marine ecosystems?
Laura Robson, Chair of the Working Group on Deep-water Ecology explains:

A vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME) refers to a group of marine species that are particularly vulnerable to human impacts, such as from deep-sea fishing activity. When aggregations of these species occur together, they form a habitat for other species, such as fish and crustaceans, which creates an ‘ecosystem’.

The vulnerability of this ecosystem depends on a number of factors which are used to determine whether a habitat is listed as a VME or not. These factors or ‘criteria’ include:

• How unique the habitat is, compared with other marine habitats, or how rare the species are that make up the habitat;
• How important the habitat is for the survival and function of fish stocks and other species;
• How fragile the habitat is to impacts from human activities, such as deep-water bottom trawling;
• Whether the component species are slow growing, long-lived or take a long time to reach sexual maturity and therefore a long time to reproduce; and,
• Whether the habitat has a complex structure, which is necessary for the survival of other species that live there.

ICES Working Group on Deep-water Ecology has prepared a list of VMEs which includes habitat-types such as deep-water coral reefs; coral gardens; deep-sea sponge aggregations and fields of soft corals called ‘sea-pens’. This list is used by the Regional Fisheries Management Organisation for the North-East Atlantic (NEAFC), to develop conservation and management measures to ensure deep-sea fishing activity in this area avoids damage to these ecosystems. Each year, ICES provide advice to NEAFC on areas where VME have been found in North Atlantic waters, and these areas are often closed to bottom trawling activity.

A coral garden VME at Anton Dohrn Seamount in the Rockall Trough in the northeast Atlantic. Image: NERC funded DeepLinks project – University of Plymouth, University of Oxford, JNCC and BGS (2016).

COVID-19 pandemic effects on ICES work

The health and safety of our staff and community are our primary concern. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, ICES Bureau has agreed to an extension of the precautionary measures. This means that expert groups will continue to operate through online meetings until at least 31 July 2021. 

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)
Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer (CIEM)
H. C. Andersens Boulevard 44-46, DK 1553, Copenhagen Denmark
Tel: +45 3338 6700 Fax: +45 3393 4215 
Email: info@ices.dk Web: www.ices.dk