The lack of effective governance is a major concern in small-scale fisheries. The implementation of governance that encompasses the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and ecological) is still a worldwide challenge. We examined nine stalked barnacle fisheries (Pollicipes pollicipes) across Southwest Europe to better understand the relationship between governance elements and sustainability. Our results show that nested spatial scales of management, the access structure, co-management, and fisher’s participation in monitoring and surveillance promote sustainability. However, it is not the mere presence of these elements but their level of implementation that drives sustainability. Efforts should be placed in the accomplishment of a minimum combination of local scales of management, access rights through individual quotas, instructive-consultative co-management and functional participation. Surpassing this threshold in future governance structures will start to adequately promote social, economic and ecologically sustainability in small-scale fisheries.

The effect of coastal upwelling on the recruitment and connectivity of coastal marine populations has rarely been characterized to a level of detail to be included into sound fishery management strategies. The gooseneck barnacle (Pollicipes pollicipes) fishery at the Cantabrian Coast (Northern Spain) is located at the fringes of the NW Spanish Upwelling system. This fishery is being co-managed through a fine-scale, interspersed set of protected rocks where each rock receives a distinct level of protection. Such interspersion is potentially beneficial, but the extent to which such spacing is consistent with mean larval dispersal distances is as yet unknown. We have simulated the spread of gooseneck barnacle larvae in the Central Cantabrian Coast using a high-resolution time-series of current profiles measured at a nearshore location. During a year of high upwelling activity (2009), theoretical recruitment success was 94% with peak recruitment predicted 56 km west of the emission point. However, for a year of low upwelling activity (2011) theoretical recruitment success dropped to 15.4% and peak recruitment was expected 13 km east of the emission point. This is consistent with a positive correlation between catch rates and the Integrated Upwelling Index, using a 4-year lag to allow recruits to reach commercial size. Furthermore, a net long-term westward larval transport was estimated by means of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences for five populations in the Cantabrian Sea. Our results call into question the role of long distance dispersal, driven by the mesoscale processes in the area, in gooseneck barnacle populations and point to the prevalent role of small-scale, asymmetric connectivity more consistent with the typical scale of the co-management process in this fishery.

Scleractinian corals, considered key reef ecosystem engineers, have suffered irreparable damage over the last decades, with causes widely attributed directly and indirectly to increased human pressure on coral communities. Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), first detected in Florida in 2014, by early 2023 had spread to 26 jurisdictions in the wider Caribbean, causing severe effects on coral reefs. In January 2020, monitoring efforts to detect SCTLD began on the island of Roatan in Honduras. The disease was first reported in Flowers Bay, Roatan, in September 2020. Since then, dedicated collaborative efforts have been made to assess the severity of the disease, mitigate its effects, and raise coral reef conservation awareness. To track the progression of the outbreak, presence-absence data were collected using the rover diver methodology. With at least 28 species affected, SCTLD has spread across the Bay Islands over a period of 13 months. Roatan and Utila have been the most impacted islands, with the disease encircling them rapidly at a rate of approximately 155 m/day. The spread of SCTLD was overall rapid, but geographical patterns were detected in Roatan, where it showed faster progression on the windward side than on the leeward side. Further research is required to explore whether these disparities are related to marine traffic, water quality, currents, or a combination of multiple factors. Our findings shed new knowledge on the spread of SCTLD in Honduras, which can provide insights for other Caribbean nations whose economies are also dependent on the health of their coral reefs.

We developed a new type of generalized depletion model adapted to the rapid life cycle of Octopus vulgaris and the data collection framework put in place in its co-managed small-scale fishery (SSF) in Asturias, northwest Spain. The model uses weekly data from 19 seasons to estimate annual recruitment and female spawners emigration out of the vulnerable stock to attend to their broods. The matched annual spawners-recruitment (SR) magnitudes are then used as observations in a non-Bayesian hierarchical inference framework. The Shepherd SR model was selected among three alternatives. The stock has a high degree of density-dependence, leading to overcompensation. The estimated SR model has an unstable equilibrium point, driving the stock to deterministic cyclic fluctuations under small disturbances. Under those conditions the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is not applicable, lending further credence to Sidney Holt’s opposition to the MSY as a basis for the elaboration of fishery management objectives, with potentially wide relevance to the management of SSF and cephalopod fisheries. We argue that harvest rates based on mean latent productivity, a concept that includes the MSY as a special case, are more adequate and sustainable for fluctuating stocks.