Fish as proxies of ecological and environmental change
Human activities have shifted aquatic ecosystems far from prehistoric baseline states. A lack of long-term听datasets that describe organisms and their habitats prior to human disturbance hampers the听understanding of human-caused impacts. Fish are excellent, and largely underused, proxies that can reveal听the degree, direction and scale of shifts in aquatic ecosystems. Time-based data sourced from听contemporary, archived and ancient fish samples can improve our understanding of how aquatic听ecosystems have changed. This range of biological, ecological and environmental data from fish can allow听ecosystem baseline states to be better defined, providing a reference point to establish policy goals for听future conservation and exploitation practices.
This research was published in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries听under the title .
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Image:听Historical fishing records and various biological parts of individual fish provide different types of data that听can be used as proxies of aquatic baselines. Inset: Parts of the fish that can provide proxy data.
Photograph: A fisherman hauls a catch of Australasian snapper from the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, New听Zealand c. 1940. (The Alexander Turnbull Library: Reference No.: PAColl-3060- 067).
This research was published in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries听under the title .
听
Image:听Historical fishing records and various biological parts of individual fish provide different types of data that听can be used as proxies of aquatic baselines. Inset: Parts of the fish that can provide proxy data.
Photograph: A fisherman hauls a catch of Australasian snapper from the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, New听Zealand c. 1940. (The Alexander Turnbull Library: Reference No.: PAColl-3060- 067).
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