Future research needs

The global distribution, migration patterns, life-cycle and feeding behaviour of most species of the genus Sebastes is relatively well understood. The knowledge on the biology of North Atlantic redfish, however, is still fragmentary. An aggregation of research constraints in large-scale international projects or symposia were not undertaken since the 1960's. The ageing of redfish (Anon., 1996) and evaluation of hydrographic and climatic influences on depth-distribution, growth and reproduction remains unexplored. The relatively young fishery for the oceanic S. mentella stock (Magnússon and Magnússon, 1995) will have to be assessed concerning long-term trends and long response time to exploitation (Leaman, 1991). The most effective, but not most reliable method at present is the monitoring with hydroacoustic surveys (Pavlov et al., 1989b; Magnússon et al., 1992). The ICES North-Western Working Group also recommends investigation into the relationships between the stock units of the traditional S. marinus and S. mentella at the continental slopes and the oceanic S. mentella at water depths shallower and deeper than 500 metres (Anon., 1997). Physiological and behavioural studies of redfish in tanks are difficult because of the low pressure compensation ability of these fish. New trawling techniques and pressure-controlled tank systems will have to be developed for these purposes.

(C) redfish.de 2001 | REDFISH home