FISHARC | FISHing Ancient Reasons to address current Concerns

Summary
Europe’s pristine marine fisheries probably originated in estuarine biotopes rather than on the open shore, while many of what we now consider offshore species were also originally denizens of much shallower waters. These new data do not emerge from traditional historical data, such as landing records, but from a less conventional source: zooarchaeolo-gy. This archaeological data also suggests that estuarine fish were particularly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Through the analysis of pre-historic, historic and modern fish remains from the Iberian Peninsula, FISHARC will explore (1) the origin and evolution of fishing activities in the Northeast Atlantic, and (2) their impacts on fish biodiversity, behaviour and ecology through time and space, with a particular focus on the commercially import species of cod and hake. The project will pair the zooarchaeological expertise of Laura Llorente-Rodríguez, with the state-of-the art biomolecular facil-ities of the BioArCh at the University of York, to 1) develop new molecular methods for accurate fish species identifica-tion; and 2) apply new stable isotope approaches to examine human impacts on the biogeography, trophic level and pop-ulation structure of North Atlantic cod and hake through time. This project will explore a unique source of cultural, ecological and environmental data preserved in archaeological record to generate invaluable baseline data on pre-industrial fish population levels immediately applicable to marine conservation and management issues.

KEYWORDS: fishing origin, fishing evolution, Norhteast Atlantic, ichtyoarchaeology, ecological baselines
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/658072
Start date: 01-10-2015
End date: 30-09-2017
Total budget - Public funding: 183 454,80 Euro - 183 454,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Europe’s pristine marine fisheries probably originated in estuarine biotopes rather than on the open shore, while many of what we now consider offshore species were also originally denizens of much shallower waters. These new data do not emerge from traditional historical data, such as landing records, but from a less conventional source: zooarchaeolo-gy. This archaeological data also suggests that estuarine fish were particularly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Through the analysis of pre-historic, historic and modern fish remains from the Iberian Peninsula, FISHARC will explore (1) the origin and evolution of fishing activities in the Northeast Atlantic, and (2) their impacts on fish biodiversity, behaviour and ecology through time and space, with a particular focus on the commercially import species of cod and hake. The project will pair the zooarchaeological expertise of Laura Llorente-Rodríguez, with the state-of-the art biomolecular facil-ities of the BioArCh at the University of York, to 1) develop new molecular methods for accurate fish species identifica-tion; and 2) apply new stable isotope approaches to examine human impacts on the biogeography, trophic level and pop-ulation structure of North Atlantic cod and hake through time. This project will explore a unique source of cultural, ecological and environmental data preserved in archaeological record to generate invaluable baseline data on pre-industrial fish population levels immediately applicable to marine conservation and management issues.

KEYWORDS: fishing origin, fishing evolution, Norhteast Atlantic, ichtyoarchaeology, ecological baselines

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2014-EF

Update Date

28-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2014
MSCA-IF-2014-EF Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF)