Effects of environmental stress on blue crab (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Callinectes sapidus</Emphasis>) harvests in Chesapeake Bay tributaries |
| |
| Authors: | Johan?A?Mistiaen Ivar?E?Strand Email author" target="_blank">Douglas?LiptonEmail author |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, P.O. Box 38, 1 Williams St, Solomons, MD 20688, USA;(2) Present address: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1305 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | Trotline blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) fishermen in the Patuxent, Chester, and Choptank tributaries of Chesapeake Bay set their gear in areas where the water quality,
characterized by average mid-channel bottom dissolved oxygen, varies across the river systems and over the fishing season.
Two harvest production models are developed to capture the potential effects of this source of environmental stress. One model
treats the impact of water quality as influencing the availability of crabs to the gear, while the second treats the impact
as another source of mortality. Both models are estimated assuming that dissolved oxygen has no effect on crab harvests above
an upper threshold of 5 mg I−1. Contrary to the mortality model, the availability model produces estimates that are consistent with our prior beliefs that
productivity will be negatively impacted by poor water quality. To determine the percentage of the available crab stock in
an area that will be harvested by a given amount of gear under different water quality conditions a simulation of the availability
model is developed. The simulations show that a decline in average mid-channel bottom dissolved oxygen in the Patuxent River
to 4 mg I−1 may lead to a 48% decline in the percentage of the blue crab population in the area that will be harvested with the same
amount of fishing effort. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
