In recent years, marine ranching, as an emerging model of marine industry development, has become a research hotspot in the marine industries of many countries. A marine ranching is an ecological aquaculture fishing ground formed within a specific sea area to increase and restore fishery resources, combined with artificial nurseries and the construction of fish reefs. As a major maritime country, China attaches great importance to the construction of marine ranching and supports them as an important means of conserving aquatic resources, providing fishermen with jobs, and building a marine ecological civilization. Bibliometric methods are considered to be useful tools that can provide a macroscopic overview of large amounts of academic literature, identify research priorities, and track the evolution of science and technology. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis was carried out using three methods: bibliometric analysis, visual analysis with CiteSpace software, and Excel pivoting, presented in the form of visual graphs and data charts. A total of 293 and 522 academic journal papers searched in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and the Web of Science (WoS) core databases were used, respectively, and to summarize the current status of construction of national marine ranching demonstration areas in China, this study also provides an overview of China’s policies on the development of marine ranching over the past two decades. It clarifies the current status, research hotspots and future directions of marine ranching research, and provides a reference for the evolution process and theoretical research of marine ranching in the future. At present, China is focusing on the development of modernized “all-area” marine ranching which is “ecological, precise, intelligent and integrated”. Obviously, it cannot be overemphasized that smart marine ranching will become a research hotspot in the future.

In recent years, smart fisheries, as an emerging model for fishery development, have become a research hotspot in the fishery and aquaculture industries of many countries. Smart fisheries can be thought of as a system that combines techniques for raising, catching, or selling aquatic products to improve production and sustainable development. Smart fisheries are crucial to improving fishery and aquaculture management. In this study, a comprehensive analysis was conducted using bibliometric analysis, the results of which are presented through visual mapping and data charts. This study collected data from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database and compared it with the WoS database. A total of 949 articles were retrieved on topics related to smart fisheries, including 579 articles from WoS and 370 articles from CNKI. The results present the visualization and analysis of annual publications, author collaboration maps, research collaboration institutions, keywords, etc. The development of smart fisheries in China is obviously different from that in foreign countries. China attaches great importance to technology and production, while foreign countries focus on environmental issues. Therefore, this study helps us to understand the current research status, research hotspots, and future development directions of smart fisheries, providing certain references for future management.

Fish are vital in enhancing the stability of marine ecosystems. Therefore, understanding the ecological niches and interspecific correlation characteristics of their dominant species provides a good scientific basis for the protection and management of marine biodiversity. In this study, on the basis of survey data from trawls conducted in the waters off Xiamen in the spring (April) and autumn (November) of 2021, the ecotopes and interspecies connectivity of the dominant fish species were investigated using the relative importance index (IRI), χ² tests, the association coefficient (AC), and Pearson and Spearman analyses. According to the IRI, there were 23 fish species with higher values, including 15 species in spring and 15 species in autumn. The 15 dominant fish species could be subdivided into wide-, medium-, and narrow-ecotope species, of which there were 2 and 3 wide-ecotope types in spring and autumn. The niche overlap indices exhibited a range of 0.000–0.809 in the spring and 0.000–0.915 in the autumn, showing small differences between the two seasons. The interspecific correlations between the dominant fishes in Xiamen’s waters in spring and autumn were weak, and both showed non-significant positive correlations, indicating that the correlations between the dominant fishes in this sea area are relatively independent. The findings of this investigation provide a fundamental database and theoretical framework for researching the adaptive mechanisms of marine fish in the Xiamen Seas.