Pablo del Monte-Luna

Centro Interdisiplinario de Ciencias Marinas del IPN · Pesquerías y Biología Marina

En la actualidad, un sector muy amplio de la sociedad habla de conservación. La noción más básica que [aún] se tiene del concepto implica mantener intacto un sistema natural de manera indefinida sin otra finalidad que la de asegurar su existencia misma. Esta idea se contrapone al concepto de conservación consensuado a nivel internacional, que impli...

Marine finfish landings in Cuba have decreased during the last 30 years. However, in Cuba’s most productive fishing region, certain species, including rays, herrings, and snappers, have had increased landings over the past decade. Despite these anomalies, no comprehensive analysis of the interactions among multispecies landing dynamics, environment...

Marine finfish landings in Cuba have decreased during the last 30 years. However, in Cuba's most productive fishing region, certain species, including rays, herrings, and snappers, have increased landings over the past decade. Despite these anomalies, no comprehensive analysis of the interactions between multispecies landing dynamics, environmental...

More than 20 global marine extinctions and over 700 local extinctions have reportedly occurred during the past 500 years. However, available methods to determine how many of these species can be confidently declared true disappearances tend to be data-demanding, time-consuming, and not applicable to all taxonomic groups or scales of marine extincti...

Examinamos críticamente la idea de la Tierra plana, discutimos por qué se cree en ella y la pertinencia de debatirla públicamente. En una Tierra plana, las explicaciones del día-noche y de las estaciones del año, no son falsables ni compatibles entre sí; además, dado que carecen de poder explicativo y predictivo, la tierra plana no es un modelo cie...

Understanding past extinction processes is an important and current matter, and regression methods in the domain of survival analysis can be applied to fossil data. The chief goal of this study is to relate genus-level lifetimes to ancient environmental conditions (e.g., sea level and surface temperatures or carbon dioxide concentration). The Cox p...

Between 20 and 24 marine extinctions, ranging from algal to mammal species, have occurred over the past 500 years. These relatively low numbers question whether the sixth mass extinction that is underway on land is also occurring in the ocean. There is, however, increasing evidence of worldwide losses of marine populations that may foretell a wave...

Climate change affects food production systems, forcing them to adapt. For marine fisheries, adaptation has been incremental and insufficient, and transformative adaptation stands as the opportunity for a timely transition to a more climate-resilient condition. Based on a limited transformational background that comes from the particularities of ma...

The state of Campeche, Mexico, harbors one of the largest green turtle (Chelonia mydas) rookeries of the Wider Caribbean Region. Since the 1970s, harvesting of this population was common practice, but it has since ceased, and the population is rebounding as a consequence. In this rookery, during the past 37 years (1984–2020), the positive relations...

Antecedentes y Objetivos: La restauración ecológica se ha centrado en los componentes físicos y vegetales de los ecosistemas, y ha dejado de lado a la fauna silvestre y sus interacciones. Chelonia mydas es un macroherbívoro en peligro de extinción que anida en playas de México y Cuba, e influye en la vegetación costera con aportaciones de materia o...

Background: Analyses of spatial and temporal patterns and interactions are important for determining the abiotic factors limiting populations and the impact from other species and different anthropogenic stressors that promote the extirpation of species. The fish Hubbsina turneri de Buen (1940) was studied as a model species in a historical context...

The stock-recruitment relationship (SR), customarily used in fisheries assessment, can be used to analyze demographic data of sea turtles to infer changes in hatchling production ( R ) as a function of nester abundance ( S ), recruitment rates and the influence of environmental conditions on these population features. The SR Cushing model (R=aS^b),...

The Galapagos Marine Reserve is one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, hosting a high species diversity and endemism and supporting economically important artisanal fisheries for local people and tourists. To ensure proper management and conservation of species in an ecosystem is necessary to determine the species' contributions to...

The southeastern Gulf of California is located where two major ocean systems meet: the California Current at the north and the North Equatorial current at the south, however the ecosystem-level effects that have such confluence remain unknown. In this study, we compared the structure and function of this ecosystem between two periods and . We based...

One of the great scientific challenges for the management of fish resources is to address the question of how much biomass must remain in the sea after fishing in order to maintain the functions of the ecosystem. We define this fishing limit as an ecosystem limit reference point, ELRP, that could be used for marine resource management. The basic co...

El número de presentaciones que un practicante de ciencia ha visto en su vida académica, puede alcanzar las centenas. Pero esta cifra se reduce a menos de diez cuando se trata solo de las que han sido extraordinarias por su calidad e impacto. Esto lleva a pensar que muchas presentaciones en congresos, conferencias y simposios no cumplen el cometido...

One of the main problems in the sequential Mexican-shrimp fisheries is the use of a constant catchability coefficient for fleets exploiting different population components implying a constant vulnerability in the population structure over time and age which denies important population processes and causes bias in fishery model outputs. The purpose...

El noroeste de México alberga las mayores abundancias de aves playeras del país. Sin embargo, para muchos de estos humedales, información sobre comunidades de aves playeras, como abundancia, tendencias poblacionales y riqueza es limitada. Actualmente, los sitios de descanso son críticos para la conservación porque las poblaciones de aves playeras h...

In tetrapods, body weight (BW) is a reliable predictor of extinction risk as it is representative of their life cycle, physiology, and ecology: low BW species tend to be less vulnerable compared to larger ones. In marine fish, excepting elasmobranchs, sturgeon, and salmonids, this relationship is not statistically significant; and in marine inverte...

Science today is facing a great challenge regarding the provision of scientific advice to the use and conservation of living marine resources, where natural systems are changing continuously in response to climate change. There is no precedent for the current situation; never before has mankind been faced with a scenario such as this, where most fi...

Fishing regulations are frequently set on a scale of hundreds to thousands of kilometers, assuming that exploited stocks respond uniformly to fishing. However, some marine resources, such as the abalone, are not amenable to such a large-scale management, for they occur as mosaics of relatively independent populations. In this fishery, the challenge...

In this contribution, we discuss the need for an ecosystems-type fisheries management approach, especially when the Campeche Bank subarea of the Gulf of Mexico Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) is strongly influenced by environmental changes. In these circumstances, the carrying capacity and the subarea structure and its organization do not reflect the...

The Gulf of California Large Marine Ecosystem (GoC-LME) is highly productive with a high diversity of marine species, including endemics and endangered, threatened or protected species thus, it is considered one of the ten marine biodiversity hotspots in the world. The significance of such areas typically conflicts with the exploitation of fish res...

During the last 60 years, the world marine fisheries potential has been estimated between 22·10 ⁶ tons and 1 400·10 ⁶ tons. However, there are no certain indications of when and with what probability such potential will be reached. By fitting a logistic curve to the observed world marine catch, corrected for discards and illegal, unreported and unr...

The seasonal and interannual variability of vertical transport (upwelling/downwelling) has been relatively well studied, mainly for the California Current System, including low-frequency changes and latitudinal heterogeneity. The aim of this work was to identify potentially predictable patterns in upwelling/downwelling activity along the North Amer...

Determinar la batimetría de la ensenada y Bahía de La Paz a partir de 1,659 puntos georreferenciados (2005-2015) y relacionar estos puntos con imágenes de satélite para encontrar una correspondencia entre la reflectancia captada por el sensor y la profundidad del océano.

The trophic aspect of ecology has been studied for more than six decades; in this contribution we address theoretical aspects relative to the concept of trophic flow at the ecosystem level and from the thermodynamics point of view. Much of this knowledge is greatly based on the consideration that ecosystems are functional units that are worth globa...

Actualmente las poblaciones que soportan la pesquería de abulón (Haliotis spp.) en la Península de Baja California, se encuentran seriamente disminuidas de 3000 toneladas al año a 300 en 2015. Este deterioro ha sido atribuido a la sobrepesca y a factores climáticos, pero hasta el momento no se ha determinado el efecto de la pesca ilegal (PI) sobre...

One of the issues that have drawn the attention of ecologists is how ecosystems that are both complex and stable are organized. It has been argued that ecosystems have regulatory mechanisms that optimize their structure and function. These mechanisms are known as self-organizing processes that are regulated by environmental forcing factors. In this...

An analysis was conducted of the community structure variability of demersal fish larvae and its relationship with environmental forcing on the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula (25–31°N). The information comes from two data sets of oceanographic cruises in 1997–2000 and 2006–2010. From a total of 190 identified taxa, a high number of spe...

The economic importance of micro hydro power plants is obvious around the world and the development trend will continue well into the future. Unfortunately the effects on the local lotic systems habitats and biocoenosis are not studied, and in some cases or are known only to a small degree. A variety of taxa were identified in the study case areas...

Into different areas (e.g., academic, public) predictions of climate as part of the process of decision-making are required. Despite such information need, the inconsistency of global models to predict the state of the climate in small scales (regions) is widely recognized. Considering this, we tested predictions of sea surface temperature (SST) in...

The shrimp fishery off the Mexican Pacific coast is the country's most important fishery from the economic standpoint. However, it faces serious problems, including the fleet’s overcapitalization and age, in addition to the environmental variability that affects the size of catches. Thus, this activity depends on a variety of factors that add uncer...

tThe trophodynamics of the Río de la Plata ecosystem over a long time scale (from 1948 to 2008) weresimulated using a food-web model forced by two environmental factors. The Atlantic Meridional Mode(meridional sea surface temperature anomalies) was used as regional forcing, and the Río de la Plata(RdlP) runoff was applied as local forcing. The enti...

Into different areas (e.g., academic, public) predictions of climate as part of the process of decision-making are required. Despite such information need, the inconsistency of global models to predict the state of the climate in small scales (regions) is widely recognized. Considering this, we tested predictions of sea surface temperature (SST) in...

Into different areas (e.g., academic, public) predictions of climate as part of the process of decision-making are required. Despite such information need, the inconsistency of global models to predict the state of the climate in small scales (regions) is widely recognized. Considering this, we tested predictions of sea surface temperature (SST) in...

When an academic researcher wishes to communicate his (her) ideas or investigation results, he (she) must submit them to evaluation in a scientific journal. The manuscript goes through three filters. Two of them, at the beginning and at the end of the publication process, are the editor's doing; in the middle, at least two referees posit a qualifie...

Any science practitioner is constantly exposed to public speaking (PS) situations: conferences, congresses, symposia, workshops, etc.; thus it is essential to communicate our ideas in a clear and convincing manner during an oral presentation. Professionals and students alike, often assume that the skills for PS are achieved and developed only by pr...

Introducción: Cualquier practicante de ciencia está frecuentemente expuesto al discurso público (DP): conferencias, congresos, simposios, seminarios, entrevistas, talleres, etc. Por ello, es imprescindible saber comunicar las ideas con claridad y contundencia en una presentación oral. Usualmente, profesionistas y estudiantes enfrentan estas situaci...

The seasonal and interannual variability of sea surface temperature (SST) in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico (SGM) is related to changes in atmospheric forcing, subsurface water inputs, advection and surface currents. However, little is known about temperature variability in the gulf on decadal and multidecadal timescales. Temperature time series (...

Ecosystems that change through time impose new scientific challenges for fisheries management advice. We present a case study to illustrate our view on how to face such challenges. The Pink Shrimp fishery in the Southern Gulf of Mexico has collapsed. Annual yields were about 24,000 metric tons during the mid-1950s to early 1970s; currently, they ar...

Nature magazine published an article about “predatory journals” to warn the scientific community about fraudulent activities in editorials that charge fees for publishing scientific articles without a proper peer review process. This represents an objectionable way for increasing individual academic production. We called these magazines as a “group...

Marine ecosystems are already responding to climate change, with examples found in virtually all of the world's oceans. Although there is not a singular response of marine amniotes to climate change, individual observations indicate three kinds of interrelated responses of marine amniotes: distribution shifts (geographic ranges), phenological chang...

Illegal catch of abalone and lobster along the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula (Mexico) was estimated from surveys conducted among fishers and data of custom duties on live lobster exported to the USA. We estimated that illegal catch of abalone amounts to 62 t yr-1 (27% of the commercial catch) and illegal catch of lobster amounts to 64...

Illegal catch of abalone and lobster along the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula (Mexico) was estimated from surveys conducted among fishers and data of custom duties on live lobster exported to the USA. We estimated that illegal catch of abalone amounts to 62 t yr–1 (27% of the commercial catch) and illegal catch of lobster amounts to 64...

Current abalone landings in Baja California (BC), Mexico, represent 7% of those observed in 1950. Such catch reduction supposes that the populations are far below the stock size estimated for the first half of the 20th century; therefore, at present, abalone populations could be governed by density independent processes. In order to test this hypot...

El objetivo del presente estudio fue desarrollar un modelo trófico (ECOPATH con ECOSIM) para caracterizar la estructura y función de la trama alimentaria de Bahía Magdalena. El modelo consta de 24 grupos funcionales, siendo dominado por grupos de niveles tróficos secundarios y terciarios, que generan un tercio de los flujos de biomasa total. Los fl...

In the present study we developed a trophic model (ECOPATH with ECOSIM), to describe the structure and functioning of Bahía Magdalena estuarine ecosystem. The model, constituted by 24 functional groups, indicates that one third of the total ecosystem biomass is produced by secondary and tertiary trophic levels. The magnitude of total flows in the s...

Se busca dar una perspectiva general del estado de las pesquerías principales en Baja California Sur y como es que el cambio en el clima global influye en su comportamiento biológico y económico

We evaluated the fish community structure in three mangrove systems from la Paz bay, southwestern gulf of California, mexico, during two annual cycles separated by 30 yrs (1980–1981 and 2009–2010). The three mangrove system have suffered different degrees of anthropogenic impact that range from relatively pristine (Balandra) to minor impacts from d...

a b s t r a c t Understanding of the intricate interactions of endemic species with anthropogenic impacts of diverse economic interests on ecosystems is of paramount importance to the implementation of effective con-servation programs. A trophic mass-balance model was used to analyze the structural properties of the North and Central Gulf of Califo...

The shrimp trawling fishery is the most important one in Mexico in value terms and given its putative environmental, societal and economical implications, it is also the most difficult to manage. Although this fishery was restricted from national bays and estuaries since the 1970’s, local fisheries cooperatives recently claimed access to shrimp sto...

Evaluation Research (ER) has its origins in the XVII century but emerges as a formal discipline in 1970. ER consists on the application of techniques used in social sciences to evaluate specific human activities. The ER design may be experimental, quasi experimental or non-experimental and must contain at least 10 basic points where the planning an...

Documentary scientific evidence supports the notion that the small pelagics fishery in the Gulf of California does not measurably affect the physical habitat or the functional relationships between the species comprising the pelagic ecosystem. Also, there is little information that suggests any negative effects of the small pelagic fishery operatio...

Grey literature has been, in general, rejected from peer reviewed journals due to the lack ofspecialized revision and because they are difficult to trace. However, this information may contain detailed data that cannot be found in commercial reviewed journals. In order to assess the importance of grey literature in fisheries ecology, we made an onl...

We estimated annually-averaged sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for four 2°×2° quadrants in the Gulf of California,Mexico using ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) and ERSST (NOAA Extended Reconstructed SST) data. We compared the anomalies to large-scale environmental indices (Pacific Decadal Oscillation index, PDO...

All species of sawfish are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered or critically endangered. In fact, the smalltooth sawfish Pristis pectinata, and the largetooth sawfish Pristis pristis, have been declared to be regionally and locally extinct from the US Atlantic coast and the Gulf of California, Mexic...

I n t r o d u c c i ó n a depredación es un proceso ecológico central en la naturaleza. Pensemos en un arrecife. Ahí se pueden en -contrar vegetales marinos, peces que comen vege tales, caracoles, gusanos y estrellas de mar –que también comen vegetales– y otros animales minúsculos. Hay peces que se comen a los caracoles, estrellas y gusa-nos; peces...

The geochemical and sedimentological studies conducted to assess the impact of bottom trawling in Mexico, are virtually absent. In this research are contrasted trawling and not-trawling sites of shrimp fishing in the coast of Sinaloa-Sonora. The analysis of grain-size indicated statistically significant differences between trawling and not-trawling...

The geochemical and sedimentological studies conducted to assess the impact of bottom trawling in Mexico, are virtually absent. In this research are contrasted trawling and not-trawling sites of shrimp fishing in the coast of Sinaloa-Sonora. The analysis of grain-size indicated statistically significant differences between trawling and not-trawling...

The Humboldt squid is an important predator in the pelagic ecosystem of the central Gulf of California and the commercial catch of this species has increased over the past decade, probable due to a decrease of several top predators (sharks, large pelagic fish and the marine mammals) and the optimal feeding conditions in this area. Its high abundanc...

Large jellyfish blooms have occurred in the East China Sea (ECS) during the last decade, a period also characterized by increasing fishing pressure, eutrophication, and changing climatic conditions. As large jellyfish blooms may have detrimental effects on fishery resources and ecosystem functioning it is desirable to understand the factors leading...

It is a fact that humans have caused several extinctions, particularly in the terrestrial realm. In the marine realm, however assessing the complete disappearance of a species from the face of the earth beyond any reasonable doubt, is a formidable task. In this contribution, the main results of an extensive review on the marine extinctions document...

No hay duda de que el hombre ha provocado cantidad de extinciones, sobre todo en el medio terrestre. En el mar, en cambio, comprobar más allá de la duda razonable que el último representante de una especie ha desaparecido de la faz de la tierra es una tarea más difícil. En el presente trabajo se muestran los resultados más importantes de una riguro...

In recent years, more than 130 extinctions have been estimated to have occurred in the marine realm. Here we review this body of evidence and show that this figure may actually be overestimated by as much as 50%. We argue that previous estimates have not fully taken into account critical uncertainties such as naturally variable geographical distrib...

The Gulf of California is unique because of its geographical location and conformation. It hosts diverse ecosystems and important fisheries that support industry and provide livelihood to coastal settlements. It is also the site of interests and problems, and an intense interaction among managers, producers, and conservationists. In this report, we...

A trophic ecosystem model of La Paz Bay, on the southern Baja California Peninsula, was improved from one previously constructed by adding 13 functional groups. In the bay, small-scale fisheries take place, which are aimed at finfish, shark and clams. Also there is a pilot shrimp trawl fishery. At the mouth of the bay, communicating with the Gulf o...

La conservación En la actualidad, un sector muy amplio de la sociedad habla de conservación: polí-ticos, economistas, intelec-tuales, académicos, artistas y actores. La idea más básica que aún se tiene del concepto implica mantener intacto un sistema natural (población, especie, hábitat, ecosistema o región) de manera indefinida, sin otra finalidad...

The Ecopath modelling package (EwE) satisfies some of the international guidelines for promoting an ecosystem-based fisheries management; however, proper definition of ecological management units has not been fully accomplished. The Biological Action Centre (BAC) concept may address this problem. BACs are small, highly productive coastal areas whos...

Nowadays, a wide sector of the society talks about conservation affairs. The basic notion that still prevails implies maintaining untouched a natural system indefinitely, with no other purpose than to assure its existence. This idea differs from the definition of conservation agreed at international level, which entails the maximum sustainable use...

Population density of four species of sea urchin (Echinodermata: Echinoidea) at La Entrega Reef, Oaxaca We conducted a sampling campaign during April and May of 2005 aiming to determine the bathymetry of La Paz Bay. The sampling array consisted of a zigzagtracking on an in board motor vessel, along the area circumscribed by the quadrilateral (1) 24...

We analyse the concept of carrying capacity (CC), from populations to the biosphere, and offer a definition suitable for any level. For communities and ecosystems, the CC evokes density-dependence assumptions analogous to those of population dynamics. At the biosphere level, human CC is uncertain and dynamic, leading to apprehensive rather than pra...

The common idea that human exploitation frequently provokes irreversible changes on natural living resources may not be entirely justified; there are evidences based on genetics and population dynamics indicating that there are no apparent reasons as to believe that natural populations can not recover after human influence has been suppressed. It s...

The relationship between body size and risk of extinction has been the focus of much recent attention; however, it has only been stated for a few groups inhabiting restricted areas. Based on the IUCN list and other public records, we suggest that the relationship between vulnerability and body size is a trend among all vertebrates, especially tetra...