10.7 Ecospace fishery

The Ecospace fishery form (Figure 10.9) is used to assign fleets, i.e., to define in which habitat(s) a fishing fleet may operate, and to identify whether a given fleet may operate within a restricted area.

For each fleet indicate where it may operate by clicking:

• All: if it can operate in all habitats (default setting), or;

• For each habitat click if may operate in the given habitat;

• MPA: click if the fleet is allowed to operate in the given protected areas.

Effective power: sets relative catchabilities by gear type, treating effort for each gear as starting at base value of 1.0 so that F for the gear (F = qE=Catch/biomass) is 1.0 · q where q is relative catchability. This is to avoid measuring effort in some unnecessary unit. Effective power should be entered as a non-negative parameter, and has a default value of 1.

Total efficiency multiplier: a scaling factor for effort by fleet, it should be non-negative, and has a default value of 1.

Figure 10.9 The Ecospace fishery form.