Small Commercial Fish Biomass Limits the Catch Potential in the High Seas

J. Guiet; D. Bianchi; K. J. N. Scherrer; R. F. Heneghan; E. D. Galbraith

doi:10.1029/2024EF004571

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Small Commercial Fish Biomass Limits the Catch Potential in the High Seas

Journal article

Open access

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Small Commercial Fish Biomass Limits the Catch Potential in the High Seas

J. Guiet, D. Bianchi, K. J. N. Scherrer, R. F. Heneghan and E. D. Galbraith

Earth's Future, Vol.13(4), pp.1-16

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004571

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Abstract

High Seas

global fisheries

commercial fish

ecological-economic model

fish populations

fish biomass

The High Seas, lying beyond the boundaries of nations' Exclusive Economic Zones, cover most of the ocean surface and host half of marine primary production. Yet, a tiny fraction of global wild fish catch comes from the High Seas, despite intensifying industrial fishing efforts. The paradoxically small fish catch could reflect economic barriers to exploiting the High Seas ‐ such as the difficulty and cost of fishing in remote ocean parts ‐ or ecological features resulting in a small biomass of commercial fish (10g–100 kg) relative to primary production. We use the coupled biological‐economic model BOATS to estimate contributing factors, comparing observed catches with simulations where: (a) fishing cost depends on distance from shore and seafloor depth; (b)catchability depends on seafloor depth or vertical habitat extent; (c) regions with micronutrient limitation have reduced biomass production; (d) the trophic transfer of energy from primary production to demersal food webs depends on water depth; and (e) High Seas biomass migrates to coastal regions. The dominant factor is ecological: commercial fish communities receive much primary production in shallow waters but less in deep waters, limiting exploitable biomass in High Seas. Other factors play a secondary role, with migrations having a potentially large but uncertain role, while economic factors have smaller effects. We estimate the High Seas hosted 25% of a global 2.8 ± 0.7 Gt biomass in the early 20th century, changing to 47% of a global 1.5 ± 0.4 Gt of commercial fish biomass during the early 21st century. Our results stress the limited potential of High Seas to provide food through wild capture fisheries.

Details

Title: Small Commercial Fish Biomass Limits the Catch Potential in the High Seas
Authors: J. Guiet (Corresponding Author) - University of California, Los Angeles
D. Bianchi - University of California, Los Angeles
K. J. N. Scherrer - University of Bergen
R. F. Heneghan - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
E. D. Galbraith - McGill University
Publication details: Earth's Future, Vol.13(4), pp.1-16
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1029/2024EF004571
ISSN: 2328-4277
Copyright note: © 2025. The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Data Availability: All data and the model used in this study are publicly available.
Grant note: D.B. and J.G. acknowledge support from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Grant 80NSSC21K0420. Computational resources were provided by the Expanse system at the San Diego Supercomputer Center through allocation TG-OCE170017 from the Advanced Cyber infrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS) program, which is supported by National Science Foundation Grants 2138259, 2138286, 2138307, 2137603, and 2138296. E.D.G. was supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program fund number CRC-2020-00108. K.J.N.S was supported by the Norwegian Research Council, project 326896.
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991127002302621
Output Type: Journal article

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