Resumen del producto

The red grouper Epinephelus morio has been historically one of the most important fisheries of the Campeche Bank where two fleets of Mexico and one from Cuba participate. Currently the stock size is one third respects to the early 70s and the state of the fishery was declared as overfished. Several management measures have been taken in order to improve the state of the stock such as minimum legal size and in recent years a closed season however, the stock remains depleted. Federal government have expressed the necessity to develop specific research aimed to explore the potential use of marine protected areas as a management measure for stock recovery and maintenance of stock health. This MPA has been initially suggested to protect reproductive aggregation during the winter. At a first step we studied red grouper distribution and its relationship with some relevant environmental variables. For this we used artificial neural network (ANN) as a tool to analyze the relationship between red grouper abundance with bottom types and environmental variables. We find that distribution of this species is strongly related with the type of bottom but also with temperature and primary production. Such results also showed some differences in the pattern of distribution respect previous traditional knowledge which can potentially be relevant for management. These results are the base for further modeling and testing of an MPA as management criteria for this fishery.

Palabras clave: red grouper; neural networks; transferencia trófica; Temperature

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