ZFH
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Cartographie des frayères des espèces halieutiques en France métropolitaine |
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The spatial planning of marine activities (fishing, installation of offshore wind farms, marine protected areas) requires precise knowledge of the essential fish habitats (e.g. spawning, nursery, feeding areas). In particular, the spatio-temporal characteristics of spawning grounds are often poorly known, as the data available to identify these areas are generally limited to data from scientific surveys.
With the recent development of geolocation of fishing activity (Vessel Monitoring System; VMS), data from the commercial fishery supplemented the available information. Thus, VMS data combined with fishery declaration data ("VMS x logbooks" data) produce high-resolution biomass observations. An integrated model has been developed to combine VMS x logbooks data with scientific data. This model makes it possible to generate predictive maps of species biomass at a monthly time step over long time series (2008-2022). By considering these maps for the months corresponding to the spawning period, it is possible to characterize the average spatial pattern of the spawning areas and their interannual variability. This model was applied to the Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. To date, a total of fifty-one maps have been generated for fifteen species in the English Channel, nineteen species in the Atlantic and seventeen species in the Mediterranean.
Initially intended for the planning of offshore wind farms, this methodology also offers the possibility of enriching current knowledge on the different essential fish habitats and on the life cycle of many less studied species.
People involved
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WOILLEZ Mathieu, Phone : 02 29 00 85 65 Email : mathieu.woillez@ifremer.fr |
Funding and Support
Ifremer-DGEC. Work carried out by Juliette Tardivy-Casemajor (engineer on a fixed-term contract financed by the DGEC) and supervised by Mathieu Woillez (UMR DECOD, Ifremer, HALGO-LBH unit, Plouzané) and Baptiste Alglave (UMR Labsticc, UBS - IUT de Vannes – Vannes).