Predicting the effects of area closures and fishing effort restrictions on the production, biomass, and species richness of benthic invertebrate communities

Authors: J. Hiddink, T. Hutton, S. Jennings, and M. Kaiser, 2006.

This paper analyzes the effect of area closures and effort reduction on benthic populations. The data is drawn from records of fleets in the North Sea. The results are discouraging: most closures have net negative yields for benthic beasts.

The computations are obscure. Hiddink et al. claim to be using a random utility model, but the equations are nowhere to be found. The entire paper has one equation, basically explaining how effort is redistributed in response to a closure. How fish redistribute themselve, or how populations grow in response to a diversion of fishing effort, remain unclear. The authors cite themselves as the source of some model in which presumably all is explained, but I didn't chase that model down.

TODO:

1. Chase down the paper with the benthic model.