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Marine reserves boost commercial fishing, DNA suggests
If you protect fish, there will be more of them to catch. That's the reasoning conservationists have long used to persuade commercial fisheries of the benefits of marine reserves.
Now they may have DNA confirmation, the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) website reports. Earlier research had shown that marine reserves result in larger fish that spawn more offspring, but researchers were left speculating exactly where the baby fish ended up and whether they truly help replenish other areas.
Now, SANCOR says, with the use of new DNA profiling techniques, scientists have shown that by devoting less than a third of an area to a marine reserve network, you can double the number of juvenile fish that settle in the rest of the area. Garry Russ, one of the authors of the study, said he has spent the last 30 years contemplating how you can confirm exactly where fish born in marine reserves go. "To me, it's a little bit like the holy grail of marine reserves as fishery management tools," he says.
Read the full article on http://sancor.nrf.ac.za.
For
further reading go to www.newscientist.com.
