Assessing spillover from marine protected areas to adjacent fisheries: Mediterranean and Black Seas
Programme: European project (CINEA/MARE European Commission)
Duration: 01/07/2023 – 30/06/2026
Marine protected areas (MPAs), and in particular fully protected areas (FPAs), can support fisheries through the spillover of fish biomass into adjacent fishing grounds. Spillover occurs when recovered populations within FPAs export juveniles and adults across reserve boundaries, potentially increasing catches and revenues. However, the magnitude and effectiveness of spillover are highly variable and depend on ecological and management conditions. Key factors include MPA design and size, enforcement level, habitat continuity, the presence of partially protected areas, species mobility, and fishing pressure near boundaries. Strengthening scientific evidence on spillover processes is essential to evaluate the real potential of MPAs to reconcile biodiversity conservation with fisheries objectives, especially in European marine regions.
Objectives
The goal of this project is to assemble existing information and collect new data to provide an overview of the role that marine protected areas (MPAs) may play for local fisheries through spillover effects in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Overall, this study will lead to an improvement in the assessment and evaluation of MPA benefits to local fisheries. The specific aims of the project are:
assess the ability of fully and partially protected areas to export fishable biomass;
identify whether spillover is mediated by some MPA features, types of fishing activities, or different levels of effort within the MPAs and around their borders, and/or species characteristics;
identify MPAs with different levels of spillover;
assess ecological and fishery spillover through two case studies in the Mediterranean Sea.
The study combines a 1) large-scale assessment collecting information on spillover from published data and grey literature throughout the Mediterranean and Black Seas and 2) a case-study approach focusing on two selected case studies in which in-depth information for both ecological and fishery spillover will be gathered and analysed to assess which MPA features, and species characteristics mainly drive spillover.
Coordinator: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Sicily Marine Centre
SZN Principal Investigator: Antonio Di Franco
Partners:
Hellenic Center for Marine Research
Interuniversity National Consortium of Marine Sciences
Institute of Oceanology-Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa”
Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries
Department of Fisheries and Marine Research
Instituto Español de Oceanografia
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
