Tracing the distribution of fish species through fishing landings monitoring
The understanding the state of conservation of marine ecosystems and the distribution and recovery capacity of marine species continue to gain momentum among marine scientists, marine resource users and other stakeholders. The main concern is overfishing, which affects the supply of seafood, income generation for large, medium and small-scale fisheries and the livelihoods of resource-dependent coastal communities, especially those in the developing world. Of the approximately 250,000 catalogued marine species, about 16,000 species are exploited by commercial fisheries. Projections made by marine scientists estimate between 2 to possibly 10 million fish species yet to be discovered and probably exploited. Predictive models coupled with bibliometric analyses showed that in the first decade of 2000 the number of authors describing new species each year increased to up to 4,900 authors. In Brazil, which covers almost half of South America and holds more than 20% of the