Kennisbasis WOT Fisheries 2011 - what is in the Programme?

Summary

The KBWOT Fisheries programme is core to the maintenance and development of the expertise that underpins the statutory obligations of fisheries monitoring and advice for the Netherlands. The structure of the KBWOT Fisheries programme for 2011 changed to reflect the recent discussions on the research direction between IMARES, CVO and EL&I. One of the strengths of the structure of the KBWOT Fisheries programme was the bottom up approach to calls for projects to fulfil the research priorities. This however was seen as giving the programme the potential to miss strategic needs of both the science development within IMARES and the research questions of EL&I, thus the programme now also contains a specific project request on an research subject relevant to IMARES and EL&I needs. The KBWOT Fisheries programme will fund 12 projects in 2011. The projects will investigate competition in exploited fish communities, long term changes in eel populations, the spawning habitat of mackerel, sub-stock structure in fish, trawling impact on benthic communities, quality assurance in fish aging, surveys of shellfish, maturity staging of fish and acoustic methods. Plus a targeted project specifically designed to research needs of IMARES and EL&I will be carried out into the trade-offs in FMSY targets for North Sea flatfish fisheries.