Impact of summer moratorium on set-net fishery in Haizhou Bay, China

The set-net fishery resources in Haizhou Bay, China have been over-exploited because of overfishing and environmental deterioration. To better understand the current situations and the development trends of fishery resources, the temporal change of biological characteristics and community compositions were analyzed from 2011 to 2018. Meanwhile, we evaluated the impact of the summer moratorium of marine fishing (SMMF) on the set-net fishery. Results show that the mean total length of the six principal species showed varying degrees of decreasing trends, while the changing patterns for the mean weight proportion of the six groups varied. For the whole communities, the similarities of the inter-annual community diversities and compositions were high. SMMF is meaningful to help reproductive success and support recruitment. Every year, the catch per unit efforts of the six principal species after SMMF were significantly higher than before SMMF except for Octopus ocellatus . The target groups showed a higher mean weight proportion after SMMF than before SMMF in eight years, while the non-target groups were converse. Therefore, the resources of the set-net fishery are changing in the study periods; and SMMF is an important factor influencing biological characteristics and community structure. Despite some challenges, SMMF is still one of the most appropriate policy tools to protect the set-net fishery resources under the reality of China.