A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna up to the Atlantic bluefin tuna. The Atlantic bluefin averages 2 m (6.6 ft), and is believed to live up to 50 years.
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae.
FishBase is a global species database of fish species. It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web. Over time it has "evolved into a dynamic and versatile ecological tool" that is widely cited in scholarly publications.
A conventional idea of a sustainable fishery is that it is one that is harvested at a sustainable rate, where the fish population does not decline over time because of fishing practices. Sustainability in fisheries combines theoretical disciplines, such as the population dynamics of fisheries, with practical strategies, such as avoiding overfishing through techniques such as individual fishing quotas, curtailing destructive and illegal fishing practices by lobbying for appropriate law and policy, setting up protected areas, restoring collapsed fisheries, incorporating all externalities involved in harvesting marine ecosystems into fishery economics, educating stakeholders and the wider public, and developing independent certification programs.
Daniel Pauly is a French-born marine biologist, well known for his work in studying human impacts on global fisheries and for being the most cited fisheries scientist in the world. He is a professor and the project leader of the Sea Around Us Project at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia. He also served as Director of the UBC Fisheries Centre from November 2003 to October 2008.
Fisheries science is the academic discipline of managing and understanding fisheries. It is a multidisciplinary science, which draws on the disciplines of limnology, oceanography, freshwater biology, marine biology, meteorology, conservation, ecology, population dynamics, economics, statistics, decision analysis, management, and many others in an attempt to provide an integrated picture of fisheries. In some cases new disciplines have emerged, as in the case of bioeconomics and fisheries law. Because fisheries science is such an all-encompassing field, fisheries scientists often use methods from a broad array of academic disciplines. Over the most recent several decades, there have been declines in fish stocks (populations) in many regions along with increasing concern about the impact of intensive fishing on marine and freshwater biodiversity.
The term billfish refers to a group of predatory fish characterised by prominent bills, or rostra, and by their large size; some are longer than 4 m (13 ft). Billfish include sailfish and marlin, which make up the family Istiophoridae, and swordfish, sole member of the family Xiphiidae. They are apex predators which feed on a wide variety of smaller fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods. These two families are sometimes classified as belonging to the order Istiophoriformes, a group with origins in the Late Cretaceous around 71 million years ago with the two families diverging from one and another in the Late Miocene around 15 million years ago. However, they are also classified as being closely related to the mackerels and tuna within the suborder Scombroidei of the order Perciformes. However, the 5th edition of the Fishes of the World does recognise the Istiophoriformes as a valid order, albeit including the Sphyraenidae, the barracudas.
The Sea Around Us is an international research initiative and a member of the Global Fisheries Cluster at the University of British Columbia. The Sea Around Us assesses the impact of fisheries on the marine ecosystems of the world and offers mitigating solutions to a range of stakeholders. To achieve this, the Sea Around Us presents fisheries and fisheries-related data at spatial scales that have ecological and policy relevance, such as by Exclusive Economic Zones, High Seas areas, or Large Marine Ecosystems.
Sea cucumbers are marine animals of the class Holothuroidea. They are used as food, in fresh or dried form, in various cuisines. In some cultural contexts the sea cucumber is thought to have medicinal value.
Porgy is the common name in the US for any fish which belongs to the family Sparidae. They are also called bream. Porgies live in shallow temperate marine waters and are bottom-dwelling carnivores. Most species possess grinding, molar-like teeth. They are often good eating fish, particularly the gilt-head bream and the dentex.
Villy Christensen is an ecosystem modeller with a background in fisheries science. He is known for his work as a project leader and core developer of Ecopath, an ecosystem modelling software system widely used in fisheries management. Ecopath was initially an initiative of the NOAA, but since primarily developed at the UBC Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia. In 2007, it was named as one of the ten biggest scientific breakthroughs in NOAA’s 200-year history. The citation states that Ecopath “revolutionized scientists’ ability worldwide to understand complex marine ecosystems".
Fish are very diverse animals and can be categorised in many ways. This article is an overview of some of ways in which fish are categorised. Although most fish species have probably been discovered and described, about 250 new ones are still discovered every year. According to FishBase, 34,300 species of fish had been described as of September 2020. That is more than the combined total of all other vertebrate species: mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds.
AquaMaps is a collaborative project with the aim of producing computer-generated predicted global distribution maps for marine species on a 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid of the oceans based on data available through online species databases such as FishBase and SeaLifeBase and species occurrence records from OBIS or GBIF and using an environmental envelope model in conjunction with expert input. The underlying model represents a modified version of the relative environmental suitability (RES) model developed by Kristin Kaschner to generate global predictions of marine mammal occurrences.
The Cunene labeo or Kunene labeo is a species of fish in the family Cyprinidae, the carps and minnows. It is native to Angola and Namibia.
Fishing down the food web is the process whereby fisheries in a given ecosystem, "having depleted the large predatory fish on top of the food web, turn to increasingly smaller species, finally ending up with previously spurned small fish and invertebrates".
The GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), former Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, is a research institute in Kiel, Germany. It was formed in 2004 by merging the Institute for Marine Science with the Research Center for Marine Geosciences (GEOMAR) and is co-funded by both federal and provincial governments. It was a member of the Leibniz Association till 2012 and is coordinator of the FishBase Consortium. Since 2012 it is member of the Helmholtz Association and named GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The institute operates worldwide in all ocean basins, specialising in climate dynamics, marine ecology and biogeochemistry, and ocean floor dynamics and circulation. GEOMAR offers degree courses in affiliation with the University of Kiel, and operates the Kiel Aquarium and the Lithothek, a repository for split sediment core samples.
SeaLifeBase is a global online database of information about marine life. It aims to provide key information on the taxonomy, distribution and ecology of all marine species in the world apart from finfish. SeaLifeBase is in partnership with the WorldFish Center in Malaysia and the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia. Daniel Pauly is the principal investigator and it is coordinated by Maria Lourdes D. Palomares. As of October 2016, it included descriptions of 74,000 species, 47,700 common names, 12,400 pictures, and references to 31,700 works in the scientific literature. SeaLifeBase complements FishBase, which provides parallel information for finfish.
LarvalBase is a global online database of information about fish eggs, larvae and fry. It includes detailed data on the identification of very young fish and the rearing of fish species important for fisheries and aquaculture. As of July 2011, it included descriptions of 2,228 species, 4,229 pictures, and references to 4,513 works in the scientific literature. The database is under the supervision of Bernd Ueberschaer at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fisheries:
William Cheung is a marine biologist, well known for his research on the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems and fisheries. He currently works as director of science of the Nereus Program and is also an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, as well as Leader at the UBC Changing Ocean Research Unit.
