Evaluating tools for the spatial management of fisheries

1. The ability to define the spatial dynamics of fish stocks is critical to fisheries management. Combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the implementation of area based management through physical patrols and port side controls are growing areas of management attention. Augmenting the existing approaches to fisheries management with forensic techniques has the potential to increase compliance and enforcement success rates.
2. We tested the accuracy of three techniques that can be used to identify geographic origin (genotyping, otolith microchemistry and morphometrics). We used fish caught from three fishing grounds separated by a minimum of 5km and a maximum of 60km to list the accuracy of these approaches at relatively small spatial scales.
3. Using nearest-neighbor analyses, morphometric analysis was the most accurate (79.5%) in assigning individual fish to their fishing ground of origin. Neither otolith microchemistry (54.0%) or genetic analyses (52.4%) ha...