Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2019
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E67
Höfundar / Authors: Jónas Páll Jónasson
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Hafrannsóknastofnun
Kynnir / Presenter: Jónas Páll Jónasson
Northerly distributional limits of Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegius) lies at the Southern part of Iceland. Fishery initiated during a warm period in the early 1950s and in 1963 a record of 6000 tonnes were landed. The catches remained high during 1960 – 1970 with a high fishing mortality. That period was also characterized by increased effort and reduction in CPUE. The next two decades (1970 – 1990) were defined with a colder temperature regime. The catches were regulated with TAC, but fishing mortality remained relatively high, which led to an overall decrease in biomass. More stringent management led to build up of the stock during 1990 – 2010. From 1996 there was rather sharp increase in temperature with large year-classes entering the fisheries and good catches followed. Pulses in recruitment have caused many of the short term fluctuations witnessed in the stock, but also periods of extreme cold spells at edge fishing grounds. However, from 2005 during recent warm period all year-classes have been really small or absent. That has led to a biomass decline, which is now estimated at all time low and an increasing vulnerability of the stock. During this warm regime the distributional range of Nephrops has slowly been increasing to the North-Western part of Iceland and the fishery has intensified again in border areas.