National Marine Fisheries Service

About: National Marine Fisheries Service is a government organization based out in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Fisheries management. The organization has 3949 authors who have published 7053 publications receiving 305073 citations. The organization is also known as: NOAA Fisheries & NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service.

Acoustic alarms reduce porpoise mortality

Abstract: The most serious danger to dolphins and porpoises around the world is the threat from various forms of gill-net fishing. One potential way to reduce the number of deaths of marine mammals is the use of active acoustic alarms to warn animals about the presence of nets1. Until now, acoustic alarms have not been tested in field experiments with sufficient statistical power2. Here we describe a field experiment showing that acoustic alarms are effective at reducing the number of deaths of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in sink gill-nets.

The evolutionary enigma of bonefishes (albula spp.): cryptic species and ancient separations in a globally distributed shorefish

Abstract: Many examples of cryptic marine species have been demonstrated with biochemical and molecular studies. In most cases, a broadly distributed taxon is actually a group of sibling species that can be distinguished (upon closer examination) by ecological or morphological characters. Fishes of the family Albulidae constitute a notable exception. Bonefish (Albula spp.) morphology and ecology are highly conserved around the globe, and their extended pelagic larval stage could allow population connections on a vast geographic scale. Based on this perceived homogeneity, bonefishes were classified as a single pantropical species, A. vulpes. However, allozyme studies of Hawaiian populations indicated that two sympatric species (A. glossodonta and A. neoguinaica) are included in the synonymy of A. vulpes. To ascertain the number and distribution of evolutionary partitions in Albula, we surveyed 564 bp of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome b from 174 individuals collected at 26 locations. Sequence compariso...

A Critical Review of Twenty Years' Use of the Resource-Ratio Theory

Abstract: A model of species interactions based on their use of shared resources was proposed in 1972 by Robert MacArthur and later expanded in an article (1980) and a book (1982) by David Tilman. This "resource-ratio theory" has been used to make a num- ber of testable predictions about competition and community pat- terns. We reviewed 1,333 papers that cite Tilman's two publications to determine whether predictions of the resource-ratio theory have been adequately tested and to summarize their general conclusions. Most of the citations do not directly test the theory: only 26 studies provide well-designed tests of one or more predictions, resulting in 42 individual tests of predictions. Most of these tests were conducted in the laboratory or experimental microcosms and used primary producers in freshwater systems. Overall, the predictions of the resource-ratio theory were supported 75% of the time. One of the primary predictions of the model, that species dominance varies with ∗ .