Research and monitoring update for the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery

1. Research and monitoring update for the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery A/Prof Tim Ward March 2015

2. Key SPF Research and Monitoring Projects Review and update harvest strategy settings for the Commonwealth small pelagic fishery (FRDC – Dr Tony Smith) Summer spawning patterns and preliminary Daily Egg Production Method survey of Jack Mackerel and Sardine off the East Coast (FRDC) Monitoring and assessment of Small Pelagic Fishery (AFMA) Draft final report March 2015; Final report April 2015 Benchmarking Australia’s small pelagic fisheries against world’s best practice (FRDC) Draft final report March 2015; Final report April 2015 Improving the precision of estimates of egg production and spawning biomass obtained using the Daily Egg Production (FRDC) Draft final report September 2015; Final report due October 2015 Egg distribution, reproductive parameters and spawning biomass of Blue Mackerel, Australian Sardine and Tailor off the East Coast during late winter and early spring (FRDC) Draft final report November 2015; Final report due 30 December 2015

3. Jack Mackerel Figure 1. Egg and adult survey locations.

4. Jack Mackerel Frequency distributions of the diameters of Jack Mackerel (Trachurus declivis) and Yellowtail Scad (Trachurus novaezelandiae) eggs preserved in ethanol and formalin solutions.

5. Jack Mackerel Figure 2. Jack Mackerel eggs staged after descriptions and key in Cunha et al. (2008).

6. Jack Mackerel Figure 3. Voronoi natural neighbour polygons used to estimate spawning area.

7. Jack Mackerel Figure 4. Sea surface temperature (SST) with egg densities of Jack Mackerel and 50 m depth contours.

8. Jack Mackerel Table 6. Number of Jack Mackerel in samples by sex and estimates of female weight, W and sex ratio, R (proportion of females by weight) for samples collected in 2014. Values in bottom row are sums (*) and weighted means (#).

9. Jack Mackerel Table 7. Number of female Jack Mackerel in samples and estimates of spawning fraction, S, for samples collected in 2014. + Includes hydrated females. Values in the bottom row are sums* and weighted means#.

10. Jack Mackerel Spawning biomass :157,805 t (95% CI = 59,570 – 358,731; Figure 8. Sensitivity analysis of the effects of individual parameters on estimates of spawning biomass of Jack Mackerel. Red and black arrows are mean, minimum and maximum values as described in Table 2. Most estimates range from ~95,000 t to 215,000 t. Plausible values for only two parameters are outside that range (i.e. ~436,000 t for P0 and ~44,000 t for S). Mean egg production (28.9 eggs.day-1.m-2) and spawning fraction (0.056) are low. Egg production based on 117 samples and good agreement among the three models. Estimates of spawning fraction based on a large number of samples. Strong evidence spawning rates were low

11. Australian Sardine SB ~11,000 t

12. Jack Mackerel First Australian study to collect samples of adult Jack Mackerel for DEPM. Samples may provide unbiased estimates of adult parameters (as they were collected during the day when fish were dispersed). Relatively few females with hydrated oocytes collected – this parameter is strongly correlated with female weight and has limited influence on estimates of spawning biomass. Large number of adult and egg samples from same location and time suggest that study may provide a robust estimate of the spawning biomass of Jack Mackerel off eastern Australia during January 2014. Proportion of the adult population that occurred outside this spawning area and was not spawning during this period is unknown.

13. Australian Sardine Locations where eggs of Australian Sardine were collected similar to Jack Mackerel, i.e. off north-eastern Tasmania and in Bass Strait. Likely that a significant proportion of the population of Australian Sardine off eastern Australia occurred outside this area during the sampling period. No adult Australian Sardine were collected during the present study. Adult parameters will be sourced from the literature and used for sensitivity analyses. Surveys conducted between Fraser Island and Jervis Bay during August/September 2014 will be more reflective of the total adult biomass off eastern Australia.

14. Blue Mackerel, Australian Sardine and Tailor Locations of plankton sites sampled from the Dell Richie II in January August-September 2014 Open circles indicate sites where replicate hauls were conducted and samples were fixed in ethanol.

15. Blue Mackerel, Australian Sardine and Tailor Locations at which trawls for Blue Mackerel and Australian Sardine were conducted from the FV Hazel-K in August-September 2014 Samples of adult Tailor also collected from line caught fish off Fraser Island by QDPI staff (~500 fish) Samples of Australian Sardine were also collected from purse seine catches off Iluka by NSW DPI staff (~500 fish)

16. Benchmarking Australia’s small pelagic fisheries against world’s best practice TECHNICAL WORKSHOP AND STAKEHOLDER FORUM ON SMALL PELAGIC FISHERIES 14-18 July 2014, SA Aquatic Science Centre Technical aspects of DEPM (international experts, Australian practitioners) Harvest strategies (international examples, Australian guidelines, managers) Ecosystem interactions (international, CCMALR, SASF) TEPS interactions (SPF, SASF, industry perspective) Localised depletion (definition, examples and mitigation options – discussion) Stakeholder Forum – overview of first four days Australia doing OK – some opportunities for improvement (report soon)

17. Improving the precision of estimates of egg production and spawning biomass obtained using the Daily Egg Production (FRDC) Aims Develop guidelines for estimating egg production (especially statistics) in different species, locations, etc) Need to adopt different approaches to deal with individual situations Simulations to test robustness of various techniques (e.g. effect of dispersal on estimates of egg production Work in progress Final report due 30 December 2015

18. Acknowledgements SARDI - Alex Ivey, Lorenzo Andreacchio, Dr Owen Burnell, Graham Hooper, Matt Lloyd, Dr Steve Mayfield, Dr Rick McGarvey UTAS/IMAS - Dr John Keane, Dr Jeremy Lyle, Prof Colin Buxton QDAFF – Dr Lenore Litherland, Dr Jonathan Staunton-Smith, Dr Eddie Jebreen AFMA - Kylie Tonon, Steve Shanks FV Western Alliance - David Guillot, skipper and crew Dell Richie II - Stuart Richey, skipper and crew Hazel-K – Russell Kerr, skipper and crew FRDC - Crispian Ashby, John Wilson, Dr Patrick Hone

19. Jack Mackerel Table 5. Mean daily egg production of Jack Mackerel estimated using four alternative models. The value used for biomass estimation is highlighted in bold. Ranges are 95% confidence intervals. Appendix 2: Egg density versus egg age for Jack Mackerel. Plots are of the four models used to estimate P0. Mean densities of day-1, day-2 and day-3 eggs are also shown.

20. Jack Mackerel Figure 5. Kernel density smoothing plots of counts of each egg stage by sampling time.

21. Jack Mackerel Figure 6. Mean age of each egg stage of T. declivis derived from kernel density smoothing (symbols) and plotted against development curves for T. trachurus eggs derived experimentally by Cunha et al. (2008).

22. Jack Mackerel Figure 7. Relationship between gonad-free weight and batch fecundity in 2014 (dotted line = 95% CI). Excluded values are indicated by shaded squares.