TY - JOUR
T1 - Trophic structure and energy fluxes around a Mediterranean fish farm
AU - Bayle-Sempere, Just T.
AU - Arreguín-Sánchez, Francisco
AU - Sanchez-Jerez, Pablo
AU - Salcido-Guevara, Luis A.
AU - Fernandez-Jover, Damián
AU - Zetina-Rejón, Manuel J.
N1 - Funding Information:
JTBS thanks to Conselleria d’Educació, Generalitat Valenciana, for financing the visits to CICIMAR during 2008 and 2009. The authors wish to thank to MARTORRES Company and its staff for facilitating the research in their facilities. We would also like to thank Dra. Francisca Giménez-Casalduero, Dra. Carmen Barberá-Cebrian, Dr. Juan E. Guillén-Nieto, Dra. Yoana Del Pilar-Ruso and Dra. Maite Vazquez Luis, who kindly provided some data and comments. Dr. Hector Villalobos from CICIMAR-IPN assisted with the figures. FAS, LASG and MJZR thank partial support by COFAA , EDI and CONACYT . The study forms part of the ACUFISH project (Department of Marine Science and Applied Biology, University of Alicante) and was funded by Spanish Ministry of Science Grant MYCT-REN2003-00794 . The comments of three anonymous reviewers helped to improve the manuscript.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - A fish farm in Southeastern Spain was described using an Ecopath mass-balanced model, aimed at characterising its structure, the interactions among ecological groups and the impact of fish farms and fisheries. The model comprised 41 functional groups (including the artificial food input). Comparing consumption and respiration to total system throughput suggests lower energy use in the fish farm, resulting in an accumulation of detritus. The production to total system throughput ratio was low due to the low efficiency of the modelled ecosystem. The connectance and system omnivory indexes were low, typical of a simple or immature food web in terms of structure and dynamics. Artificial food pellets provided energy and nutrients to sustain system function and generate a considerable reserve from which it can draw to meet unexpected perturbations. The study shows the substantial effect the artificial food pellets have on the wild aggregated fishes, which could act to buffer the ecosystem and hence prevent environmental degradation.
AB - A fish farm in Southeastern Spain was described using an Ecopath mass-balanced model, aimed at characterising its structure, the interactions among ecological groups and the impact of fish farms and fisheries. The model comprised 41 functional groups (including the artificial food input). Comparing consumption and respiration to total system throughput suggests lower energy use in the fish farm, resulting in an accumulation of detritus. The production to total system throughput ratio was low due to the low efficiency of the modelled ecosystem. The connectance and system omnivory indexes were low, typical of a simple or immature food web in terms of structure and dynamics. Artificial food pellets provided energy and nutrients to sustain system function and generate a considerable reserve from which it can draw to meet unexpected perturbations. The study shows the substantial effect the artificial food pellets have on the wild aggregated fishes, which could act to buffer the ecosystem and hence prevent environmental degradation.
KW - Aquaculture
KW - Impact
KW - Management
KW - Mass-balanced models
KW - Mediterranean
KW - Wild aggregated fishes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84868584732&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.08.028
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.08.028
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0304-3800
VL - 248
SP - 135
EP - 147
JO - Ecological Modelling
JF - Ecological Modelling
ER -