Dataset Information

Bioeconomic modeling for a small-scale sea cucumber fishery in Yucatan, Mexico.

ABSTRACT: Due to the heavy exploitation of holothurians over the last few decades, it is necessary to implement fishing regulations aimed at reversing this situation. Holothurians require specific regulations that take into account their biology and ecology. Their behavior to group and form patches as a strategy for feeding, defense and reproduction, makes them vulnerable to overfishing. The higher the population density, the higher the catchability coefficient, and because they are sedentary organisms, the catchability does not change significantly until the density is very low. Hence, the stock assessment of holothurians can be improved by analyzing their spatial distribution. This paper proposes a stock assessment technique that considers the spatial distribution pattern of the sea cucumber Isostichopus badionotus from Yucatan, Mexico. A bioeconomic spatial model was developed to explain the interactions between fishing effort allocation, quasi-profits and the population in the short term. Because of the high price of the species and the low production costs, artisanal fishers preferred to maximize short-term quasi-profits, rather than the long-term benefits they could gain with low fishing mortality rates.

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Flores A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5760041 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Bioeconomic modeling for a small-scale sea cucumber fishery in Yucatan, Mexico.

Hernández-Flores Alvaro A Cuevas-Jiménez Alfonso A Poot-Salazar Alicia A Condal Alfonso A Espinoza-Méndez Juan Carlos JC

PloS one 20180109 1

Due to the heavy exploitation of holothurians over the last few decades, it is necessary to implement fishing regulations aimed at reversing this situation. Holothurians require specific regulations that take into account their biology and ecology. Their behavior to group and form patches as a strategy for feeding, defense and reproduction, makes them vulnerable to overfishing. The higher the population density, the higher the catchability coefficient, and because they are sedentary organisms, t ...[more]

PMID: 29315339

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Project description:Formal and informal institutions govern fisheries around the world. Yucatan's sea cucumber fishery is not an exemption, the sudden and fast development of the fishery in 2010 has motivated the creation of informal and illegal forms of organization. The prices, buyers' interest and the fishing effort substantially increased, being followed by illegal fishing-fishers and traders, creating informal fishing-trade channels and severe social and biological concerns. This article aims to give account of the emergence and dynamics of the informal institutions which currently dominate this fishery. It was sought to identify the extent to which rules and regulations are not being respected and how they are affecting fish resources and coastal communities. We considered the case of the port of Sisal, Yucatan, Mexico to illustrate our argument and here we applied a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including informal and in-depth interviews applied to 17 key informants, a questionnaire applied to 47 fishers and an estimation of the degree of compliance from three of the main management measures. Socio-biological negative impacts were identified in Yucatan's coastal communities and its fisheries. Foreign buyers and local middlemen exert high pressure on fishers to exceed the quota and catch the highest possible volumes facilitating the fisheries decline. This and the growing economic interest motivated the development of strong informal institutions supporting illegal fishing and informal trade. Social problems emerged and women were particularly affected. The economic power of the fishery is likely to overcome any type of governance structure. The enforcement of entry rules was not effective, so the governance base was around informality and illegal actions. Local and foreign buyers are exerting pressure to increase the catch volume thus it is recommended that rules and regulations be directed at buyers and exporting companies rather than at fishers.

Project description:Jaguars and pumas are top-predator species in the Neotropics that are threatened by habitat destruction, illegal poaching of their body parts and their favored prey, and by the human-wildlife conflicts that arise when predators attack livestock. Much of the remaining felid habitat in the Americas is in protected nature reserves that are too small and isolated to support local populations. Surrounding forests therefore play a vital role in felid conservation. Successful long-term conservation of these two felids requires evidence-based knowledge of their biological and ecological requirements. We studied population distributions of jaguars and pumas and their prey in and between two small, private reserves of the Northern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, with areas of 25 and 43 km2. During 2 years of camera trapping (2015 and 2016), we detected 21 jaguars, from which we estimated an average space requirement of 28-45 km2/individual. Dietary niche overlap exceeded random expectation. The most frequently occurring prey items in jaguar and puma diets were collared peccary and deer. Jaguar also favored nine-banded armadillos and white-nosed coati, while puma favored canids. Both felids avoided ocellated turkey. Overall, diet of jaguars was less species-rich, but similar in niche breadth, to that of pumas. A fluid use of space by both species, in 2015 tending toward mutual attraction and in 2016 toward partial exclusion of pumas by jaguars, combined with the high dietary overlap, is consistent with a dominance hierarchy facilitating coexistence. Jaguars and pumas favor the same prey as the people in local communities who hunt, which likely will intensify human-wildlife impacts when prey become scarce. We conclude that even small reserves play an important role in increasing the continuity of habitat for prey and large felids, whose generalist habits suppress interspecific competition for increasingly limiting prey that are largely shared between them and humans.

Project description:Dengue vaccines will soon provide a new tool for reducing dengue disease, but the effectiveness of widespread vaccination campaigns has not yet been determined. We developed an agent-based dengue model representing movement of and transmission dynamics among people and mosquitoes in Yucatán, Mexico, and simulated various vaccine scenarios to evaluate effectiveness under those conditions. This model includes detailed spatial representation of the Yucatán population, including the location and movement of 1.8 million people between 375,000 households and 100,000 workplaces and schools. Where possible, we designed the model to use data sources with international coverage, to simplify re-parameterization for other regions. The simulation and analysis integrate 35 years of mild and severe case data (including dengue serotype when available), results of a seroprevalence survey, satellite imagery, and climatological, census, and economic data. To fit model parameters that are not directly informed by available data, such as disease reporting rates and dengue transmission parameters, we developed a parameter estimation toolkit called AbcSmc, which we have made publicly available. After fitting the simulation model to dengue case data, we forecasted transmission and assessed the relative effectiveness of several vaccination strategies over a 20 year period. Vaccine efficacy is based on phase III trial results for the Sanofi-Pasteur vaccine, Dengvaxia. We consider routine vaccination of 2, 9, or 16 year-olds, with and without a one-time catch-up campaign to age 30. Because the durability of Dengvaxia is not yet established, we consider hypothetical vaccines that confer either durable or waning immunity, and we evaluate the use of booster doses to counter waning. We find that plausible vaccination scenarios with a durable vaccine reduce annual dengue incidence by as much as 80% within five years. However, if vaccine efficacy wanes after administration, we find that there can be years with larger epidemics than would occur without any vaccination, and that vaccine booster doses are necessary to prevent this outcome.

Dataset Information

Bioeconomic modeling for a small-scale sea cucumber fishery in Yucatan, Mexico.

Publications

Bioeconomic modeling for a small-scale sea cucumber fishery in Yucatan, Mexico.

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