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. 2015 Jul 15;10(7):e0133122.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133122. eCollection 2015.

Matching Fishers' Knowledge and Landing Data to Overcome Data Missing in Small-Scale Fisheries

Ludmila de Melo Alves Damasio  1 , Priscila F M Lopes  2 , Rafael D Guariento  3 , Adriana R Carvalho  4
Affiliations

Matching Fishers' Knowledge and Landing Data to Overcome Data Missing in Small-Scale Fisheries

Ludmila de Melo Alves Damasio et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: In small-scale fishery, information provided by fishers has been useful to complement current and past lack of knowledge on species and environment.

Methodology: Through interviews, 82 fishers from the largest fishing communities on the north and south borders of a Brazilian northeastern coastal state provided estimates of the catch per unit effort (CPUE) and rank of species abundance of their main target fishes for three time points: current year (2013 at the time of the research), 10, and 20 years past. This information was contrasted to other available data sources: scientific sampling of fish landing (2013), governmental statistics (2003), and information provided by expert fishers (1993), respectively.

Principal findings: Fishers were more accurate when reporting information about their maximum CPUE for 2013, but except for three species, which they estimated accurately, fishers overestimated their mean CPUE per species. Fishers were also accurate at establishing ranks of abundance of their main target species for all periods. Fishers' beliefs that fish abundance has not changed over the last 10 years (2003-2013) were corroborated by governmental and scientific landing data.

Conclusions: The comparison between official and formal landing records and fishers' perceptions revealed that fishers are accurate when reporting maximum CPUE, but not when reporting mean CPUE. Moreover, fishers are less precise the less common a species is in their catches, suggesting that they could provide better information for management purposes on their current target species.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Study area.
Fishing communities sampled in the north (Caiçara do Norte) and in the south (Baía Formosa) of the Rio Grande do Norte State, Brazilian northeastern region.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Research outline.
Questions and hypotheses raised by the research team and fishers that guided the statistical analyses performed regarding the CPUE for 1993, 2003, and 2013. (See text for details.)
Fig 3
Fig 3. Difference between mean CPUE informed by fishers and mean CPUE of formal data.
Mean value and confidence interval of the difference between the CPUE provided by fishers (2003 and 2013) and the CPUE calculated from governmental data (2003) and from scientific data (2013). Fig A: South municipality in 2013; Fig B: North municipality in 2013; Fig C: South municipality in 2003, and Fig D: North municipality in 2003. Flying fish was not included due to its large confidence interval (CI—upper: 2.64; lower: 0.23). Dotted line is not shown when the difference between the values was not negative (as in Fig 3B and 3C).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Difference between maximum CPUE informed by fishers and maximum CPUE of scientific data.
Mean value and confidence interval of the difference between maximum CPUE according to fishers and according to scientific landing data (records for 2013). (A) CPUE overestimated (vertical dotted line) by fishers or similar to the official data (see arrows) in the South municipality; (B) CPUE underestimated by fishers in the South municipality. Black Grouper (underestimated) is not shown due to its large confidence interval (mean: -10.489; upper: -9.954; lower: -10.934); (C) CPUE overestimated or similar (arrows) to the CPUE of official data in the North municipality.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Difference between maximum CPUE informed by fishers and maximum CPUE of governmental data.
Mean value and confidence interval of the difference between the maximum CPUE estimated using fishers' information and the maximum CPUE according to the governmental data (landing records for 2003) in the South municipality (A) and the North municipality (B).
Fig 6
Fig 6. Correlation of the rank of species abundance, based on catch data, according to fishers from the South with the rank of species abundance, also based on catch data, according to formal data.
(A) Scientific landing data for 2013 (r = 0.88, p = 0.000) and (B) Governmental landing data for 2003 (r = 0.75, p = 0.009).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Publication types

Grants and funding

LMAD received a masters' grant from Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) (http://www.capes.gov.br/). PFML received a research grant from Rio Grande do Norte Research Foundation, through the First Research Program Call (http://www.fapern.rn.gov.br/).

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