@article {398,
	title = {Biomass Size Spectra in Littoral Fishes in Protected and Unprotected Areas in the NW Mediterranean},
	journal = {Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science},
	year = {2002},
	abstract = {<p>The biomass size spectra in the littoral rocky fish communities in the  Medes Island Marine Reserve and three unprotected localities from the NW  Mediterranean were studied over a period of two years. A large number  of individuals (81 478 in the protected area and 59 536 in the  unprotected zones), belonging to 57 species, were censused. Communities  were studied in different characteristic habitats (rocky bottoms and  Posidonia oceanica sea grass beds). The slopes of the curves for the  normalized size spectra showed that fish biomass in rocky areas was  nearly constant from the smallest to the largest size classes. That  trend was observed in both the unexploited and the moderately exploited  areas, suggesting that the removal of large ichthyophagous individuals  (e.g. Dentex dentex, Dicentrarchus labrax, Epinephelus marginatus) did  not significantly affect the scale of population biomass with size. The  pattern was different for the seagrass bed communities, in that the  biomass of the larger size classes tended to increase in the protected  area, whereas biomass was nearly constant across all the size classes in  the exploited area. These results suggest that the communities at  seagrass beds could be more sensitive to disturbance, because a large  portion of the fish biomass is concentrated in one or a few species  (e.g. Sarpa salpa). This study underscores the interest held out by  marine reserves as a point of reference for studies on fish community  size spectra and point out the existence of dissimilar size spectrum  distributions in heterogeneous communities.</p>},
	keywords = {biomass, coastal zone, comparison, curve, Dicentrarchus labrax, distribution, dusky, Epinephelus marginatus, fish, habitat, island, littoral, marine protected area, marine reserve, Medes, Mediterranean sea, population, Posidonia oceanica, protected area, rocky shore, Sarpa salpa, scale, seagrass, serranidae, size, Spain, trend, unprotected area, western Mediterranean},
	author = {E. Macpherson and A. Garcia-Rubies and A. Gordon}
}
