• Energy Research

Lake IJsselmeer is a former estuary in the Netherlands that has been cut off from the sea in 1932. Excessive fishing effort, ongoing declines in landings and low revenues indicate that 75 years of fishery have not been sustainable in terms of socio-economical and ecological stability or avoidance of over-exploitation, despite measures aiming at reductions in fishing effort throughout the management history. We review the management history with a focus on how responsible fisheries management depends on time scales of management decisions, in comparison to time scales of fish population dynamics, and ecological changes. Management actions to improve sustainability have been generally implemented with considerable delays and in small steps, to avoid short-term losses in revenues. These actions turned out to be insufficient, as their potential impact was both inadequate and counteracted over time by technical advances in fisheries and by unforeseen ecological changes.

Nuancering van het veel verbreide idee van concurrentie tussen visetende vogels enerzijds en sport- en beroepsvisserij anderzijds. Een reconstructie van het seizoensverloop van productie, consumptie en biomassa van Spiering (Osmerus eperlanus) in het IJsselmeer laat zien dat dichtheidsafhankelijke processen (groei en sterfte) een zodanige rol spelen dat van concurrentie nauwelijks sprake is; alleen de aalscholvers ondervinden in het late voorjaar schade van de beroepsvisserij op spiering in het vroege voorjaar

AbstractGrowth is one of the most direct and common ways fish respond to climate change, as fish growth is intimately linked to the temperature of the environment. Observational studies on the effect of shifts in temperature on fish growth are scarce for freshwater fish, and particularly lacking for lake populations. Here, changes in growth rate of bream (Abramis brama), perch (Perca fluviatilis), pikeperch (Sander lucioperca), and roach (Rutilus rutilus) over three decades were studied and compared with changes in temperature in the two largest lakes of western Europe: Lake IJsselmeer and Lake Markermeer in the Netherlands. In the autumnal survey catches of bream, perch, and roach, the mean length of YOY increased significantly between 1992 and 2021 in both lakes, but for YOY pikeperch, no temporal changes were found. In a length‐stratified dataset of age groups of bream, roach, and perch, the relationship between length and age differed significantly between time periods. In the more recent time periods, indications for higher growth rates across multiple ages were found. Temperature during the growth season increased in the same decades and showed significant correlations with the YOY mean length, for bream, perch, and roach in both lakes, and for pikeperch in Lake Markermeer. These results point toward consistent temperature‐induced increases in growth over the age groups for bream, roach, and perch. These increases were found despite the simultaneous process of de‐eutrophication in this water system and its potential negative effect on food production. For pikeperch, it is hypothesized that the absence of temporal increase in YOY growth rate is related to its necessary switch to piscivory and subsequent food limitation; the lower thermal range of its main prey smelt, Osmerus eperlanus, is hypothesized to have inhibited food availability for YOY pikeperch and its opportunity to achieve higher growth rates.

De belangrijkste overwegingen bij een duurzame spieringvisserij zijn: bescherming van de paaistand; reservering van spiering als voedsel voor vogels en roofvis; (baars, snoekbaars), waarbij rekening gehouden moet worden met recente ontwikkelingen in milieuomstandigheden van IJsselmeer en Markermeer. Resultaten van onderzoek, op verzoek van LNV