Fishery production surveys constitute the basis for assessing and managing fishery resources. A well-defined and reasonable sample size is essential for the accuracy and precision of survey outcomes. In this study, we aggregated production surveys from major economic fishing ports in the northern South China Sea from 2008 to 2018, totaling 36499 forms. It was assumed that these data accurately reflected the catch per unit effort (CPUE) of Decapterus maruadsi employing various fishing gear. We focused on optimizing the investigations by analyzing the CPUE of D. maruadsi across five distinct fishing operations: otter trawl, twin trawl, light purse seine, gillnet, and light falling net. We organized the survey data by fishing type and stratified them according to engine power and survey time. We used a proportional allocation for the sample sizes and stratified random sampling without replacement for the simulations. We utilized computer simulations to resample the CPUE of D. maruadsi derived from five different fishing operation types, employing the relative estimation error (REE) and relative bias (RB) as evaluation metrics. We aimed to analyze the relationship between the CPUE of D. maruadsi and sample size in the northern South China Sea.
The port catch sampling survey yielded production information for different fishing operation types, with each survey form reflecting the CPUE data for a single voyage. Because of the variability of the CPUE for D. maruadsi among different fishing operation types and across seasons within the same operation type, this study categorized the survey forms by operation type and season. We calculated the CPUE for each operation type in the different seasons and used these values as the "true values" for comparison. We consolidated the survey data from various fishing gears across different power ranges and computed the CPUE for these forms. Furthermore, we employed CPUE as a metric to compare the fishing capacity and efficiency of the different fishing gear targeting the species of interest. We observed seasonal variations in the CPUE estimates for D. maruadsi across different fishing operation types. By averaging the CPUE estimates over the four quarters, we discovered that the light purse seine method had the highest CPUE estimate at 3.577 kg/(kW·d), whereas the gillnet method had the lowest CPUE estimate at 0.143 kg/(kW·d).
The results of this study revealed differences in the distribution range of REE values for catch rate estimates among different fishing operation types; however, the overall trend of change was similar. Particularly, with an increase in sample size, the boxplot of REE values for CPUE estimates of each fishing gear showed a gradually decreasing trend, whereas the RB values exhibited decreasing dispersion and tended to stabilize. Notably, the distribution range of REE values for the light purse seine and gill net methods was relatively smaller than that of other fishing gear. We found that the minimum sample sizes required for estimating CPUE varied among different fishing operation types, and the rules for determining these minimum sample sizes also differed. Otter trawl, pair trawl, and light purse seine determined the minimum sample size based on REE ≤ 10%, whereas gillnets and light falling nets (except in winter) determined the minimum sample size based on REE ≤ 5%. We also found that, as the sample size reached a specific threshold, the impact of increasing the number of survey forms on the estimation accuracy of the average catch rates gradually decreased. In the summer, when the sample size reached 600, the REE values for twin trawl, light purse seine, and light falling net were below 10%; when the sample size reached 800, the REE values for the otter trawl decreased to within 10%; and when the sample size increased to 1200, the REE value for the gill net decreased to within 10%, whereas the REE values for other operation types remained below 5%. As the sample size continued to expand, the impact on sampling accuracy became increasingly minimal. In general, when the sample size reached a certain threshold, the changes in REE and RB tended to stabilize, and the redundant portion of the sample size could be optimized. Even with a reduced sample size, estimation accuracy could be ensured to a certain extent.
In this study, the minimum acceptable sample size for CPUE estimation varied across fishing operation types. Assuming that the survey data from 2008 to 2018 accurately represented fishery production and considering an REE of less than 10%, the minimum number of survey trips required for CPUE estimation of D. maruadsi by operation type and season were as follows: otter trawl (91, 68, 59, and 86), twin trawl (41, 41, 82, and 52), light purse seine (164, 87, 95, and 57), gillnet (218, 218, 245, and 191), and light falling net with attractors (100, 81, 64, and 43). On average, these corresponded to 76 trips for the otter trawl, 54 for the twin trawl, 218 for the gillnet, 101 for the light purse seine, and 72 for the light falling net with attractors. In this study, we optimized sample size using the mean CPUE of D. maruadsi as the survey target, and the evaluation results may serve as a reference for catch surveys in northern South China Sea fishing ports.
1 材料与方法
2 结果




