Abstract
The industrial fisheries of the world remove approximately 90 million metric tons (t) of fish per year. This is a conservative estimate of catch reported to the Food and Agricultural Organization and if unreported and unwanted catch (which is destroyed during the fishing process) were included, it is probable that the total tonnage of fish killed each year would be at least double the above figure. Since most of the species being harvested are predators that are separated from the primary producers by several steps in the food chain of the sea, it is reasonable to ask, what effect has this removal of top predators had on the production and biodiversity of organisms at lower trophic levels?
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Parsons, T.R. (1996). The Impact of Industrial Fisheries on the Trophic Structure of Marine Ecosystems. In: Polis, G.A., Winemiller, K.O. (eds) Food Webs. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7007-3_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7007-3_34
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