415 / 2024-09-16 17:22:58

Assessing conservation gaps under fishing pressure in the Ross Sea

Ross Sea; Threatened species; Species distribution model; Fishing pressure; Sustainability

Session 61 - Advancing Blue Food Futures Towards Ocean Conservation and Global Resilience

The Ross Sea is the most productive and biologically diverse area in the Antarctic and the main fishing area for Antarctic krill and toothfish. Although the world's largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) has been established in the region to prevent overfishing, the existence of a conservation gap in the Ross Sea remains unknown. Therefore, we collected occurrence records for 332 Antarctic endangered species from the IUCN Red List from the OBIS and GBIF databases. After screening, 91 species (with 133,371 occurrence records) and 13 environmental variables were used to predict the habitats of these species using MaxEnt. The predicted habitats and fishing pressure were spatially analyzed using ArcGIS to identify conservation priorities, and the conservation priorities were subsequently overlaid with protected areas to map conservation gaps. Results indicated that habitats with high species diversity were located in Victoria Land (47 species), Cape Colbeck (38), Scott Island (46), the Balleny Islands(57), and areas along the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge (48), while habitats with low species diversity were located in the central and northwestern Ross Sea (0) and in the area between Victoria Land and the Balleny Islands (0). Of these areas, fishing pressure was relatively high in Victoria Land and Scott Island, but Cape Colbeck and the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge have not been affected yet. Except for the areas covered in the Ross Sea MPA, the rest areas in the eastern Cape Adare and the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge were the conservation gaps. Based on the results, the current protected areas in the Ross Sea do not fully cover the Conservation Priority Areas, and we recommend that the protected areas in the Ross Sea need to be further optimized in the future. Our findings offered scientific basis for sustainable fish and conservation management in the Ross Sea.