Groundfish with diverse life histories increase in size and abundance with proximity to spatial protections
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Spatial protections that exclude fisheries have long been used to manage and conserve marine species. Detecting the benefits of protected areas for fish within them and for adjacent fisheries (via spillover effects) is key to informing fisheries management yet also difficult. We leveraged an extensive dataset collected over 18 years by an alliance of four Indigenous Nations in Pacific Canada. Our analyses of those data quantified the benefits of spatial fishery closures, known as Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs), on 28 species of groundfish occupying a wide range of distances from RCAs (inside RCAs to ≈150 km away). On average, body sizes and relative abundance increased by 1.1% and 11.0%, respectively, per 5 km-increase in RCA proximity. Variation around these average responses depended on the species’ life history characteristics, RCA location, and historical impacts from commercial fishing. Additionally, the benefits of spatial protection increased with time since RCA implementation.
