Demography of the largest and most endangered Brazilian parrotfish, Scarus trispinosus, reveals overfishing

Many parrotfishes (Labridae: Scarinae) have life history traits, including late maturation and long lifespans, that make them vulnerable to overfishing. The greenbeak parrotfish Scarus trispinosus is the largest Brazilian endemic parrotfish and has been harvested in reef-associated fisheries along the coast. After a sharp population decline, S. trispinosus is now considered by the IUCN to be an Endangered species. We provide an assessment of age-based and reproductive biology for this species and discuss applications for fisheries management. We sampled 95 individuals from inshore and offshore reefs from Rio Grande do Norte state, northeast Brazil, both obtained from artisanal fishing landings and fishery-independent collections. All sampled specimens were females with fork lengths (FL) ranging from 8.1 to 55.9 cm and ages ranging from 0.3 to 7 yr, with estimated median maturity (L50) of 39.2 cm FL and median age (A50) of 4.2 yr. Size class distributions indicate that the inshore reefs are mostly inhabited by juveniles under L50, whereas the offshore reefs are inhabited by mature individuals, suggesting an ontogenetic habitat shift from inshore to offshore reefs around the timing of maturation. The fishing pressure on this species is concentrated in inshore reefs, therefore mostly on immature individuals, which may be severely affecting the reproductive capacity of this species. This information is useful to guide size-based fisheries management, such as regulating minimum capture size and fishing gears that capture individuals smaller than L50. Managing fisheries of endangered species with late maturity and complex reproductive cycles such as S. trispinosus is imperative to aid recovery.

Modeling sensitive parrotfish (Labridae: Scarini) habitats along the Brazilian coast

In coral reef environments, there is an increasing concern over parrotfish (Labridae: Scarini) due to their rising exploitation by commercial small-scale fisheries, which is leading to significant changes in the reefs' community structure. Three species, Scarus trispinosus (Valenciennes, 1840), Sparisoma frondosum (Agassiz, 1831) and Sparisoma axillare (Steindachner, 1878), currently labeled as threatened, have been intensively targeted in Brazil, mostly on the northeastern coast. Despite their economic importance, ecological interest and worrisome conservation status, not much is known about which variables determine their occurrence. In this study, we adopted a hierarchical Bayesian spatial-temporal approach to map the distribution of these three species along the Brazilian coast, using landing data from three different gears (gillnets, spear guns, and handlines) and environmental variables (bathymetry, shore distance, seabed slope, Sea Surface Temperature and Net Primary Productivity). Our results identify sensitive habitats for parrotfish along the Brazilian coast that would be more suitable to the implementation of spatial-temporal closure measures, which along with the social component fishers could benefit the management and conservation of these species.