ABSTRACT: The Norway lobster Nephrops norvegicus is one of the most important marine resources for European fisheries. However, overfishing has caused the stocks to decline over the last decades, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea. The implementation of no-take marine reserves could change these current trends, thus achieving a more sustainable fishery. The effectiveness of no-take reserves depends on optimal size design, and because of this, new behavioural data on the spatial ecology of the species are of pivotal importance. Here, for the first time, we investigated the spatial movements and daily activity patterns of Norway lobster in a deep-water (315-475 m depth) no-take marine reserve of 10 km² in the continental slope of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, by combining acoustic tracking and tagging-recapture procedures. The results revealed the territorial behaviour of Norway lobster, centred in small exclusive individual areas where most displacements took place at midday. We found that once settled in a place, their home ranges reached approximate sizes of 17.75 to 736.25 m², suggesting that no-take marine areas focussed on recovering Norway lobster populations do not require large extents to be effective. Tag-recapture data indicated minimal spillover of biomass, implying that Norway lobsters are site settled and do not perform large movements. Future studies on larval spread and recruitment would be necessary to focus on the possible spillover benefit for fisheries. The acoustic telemetry system used in the present experiment effectively revealed the range of movement of individuals, and thus represents a promising monitoring tool to assess no-take marine reserve sizes and reciprocal spacing for deep-water demersal resources.

中文翻译：

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地中海深水环境中挪威龙虾 Nephrops norvegicus 的空间生态学：对设计禁捕海洋保护区的影响

摘要：挪威龙虾Nephrops norvegicus是欧洲渔业最重要的海洋资源之一。然而，在过去的几十年里，过度捕捞导致种群数量下降，特别是在地中海。禁捕海洋保护区的实施可以改变这些当前的趋势，从而实现更可持续的渔业。禁采保护区的有效性取决于最佳规模设计，因此，物种空间生态学的新行为数据至关重要。在这里，我们首次调查了挪威龙虾在 10 km ²的深水（315-475 m 深）禁捕海洋保护区中的空间运动和日常活动模式在地中海西北部的大陆坡上，通过结合声学跟踪和标记 - 重新捕获程序。结果揭示了挪威龙虾的领地行为，集中在小的专属个体区域，大多数迁移发生在中午。我们发现，一旦定居在一个地方，他们的家园范围就达到了大约 17.75 到 736.25 m ²，表明专注于恢复挪威龙虾种群的禁捕海域不需要很大范围才能有效。标签重新捕获数据表明生物量的溢出最小，这意味着挪威龙虾是现场定居的，不会进行大的运动。未来有必要对幼虫传播和补充进行研究，以关注渔业可能产生的溢出效益。本实验中使用的声学遥测系统有效地揭示了个体的运动范围，因此是一种很有前途的监测工具，可用于评估深水底层资源的禁采海洋保护区大小和相互间距。