Coulson et al.: Biological features of Achoerodus gouldii 
73 
ary evaluation of the implications of increased fishing 
mortality on the males. 
Beamish et al. (2006) have recently drawn attention 
to the importance, when considering long-lived species, 
of understanding the effects of removing large numbers 
of the older age classes, which they referred to as lon- 
gevity overfishing. In this context, managers need to 
recognize that our age-frequency distributions indicate 
that commercial gill netting captures the older age 
classes of A. gouldii. It is instructive to consider the po- 
tential for overfishing of the very long-lived (maximum 
age, 70 years) A. gouldii in the context of the response 
to heavy fishing by the smaller and earlier maturing 
but still quite large and relatively long-lived congener 
A. viridis (maximum age, 35 years). Achoerodus viri- 
dis suffered such heavy fishing mortality in eastern 
Australia that the waters of that region were closed 
to commercial and recreational fishing for that species 
and still remain closed to spear and commercial fishing 
(Gillanders, 1999). 
When assessing which combination of typical fishery 
controls should be applied to A. gouldii, e.g., possession 
limits, controls on fishing gear or effort, minimum or 
maximum (fish) size limits (or both), and closed areas 
and seasons, consideration needs to be given to the ef- 
fects of the various controls on both the commercial and 
recreational fishing sectors and the likely effectiveness 
of each control in helping to restore or maintain the 
reproductive potential of both the females and males of 
this species. In particular, managers should recognize 
that the inshore recreational fishery is a multispecies 
fishery, which, for A. gouldii, is a gauntlet fishery (i.e. 
a fishery largely restricted to catching fish of a limited 
period of their life cycle) that catches mainly smaller 
individuals. In contrast, the commercial fishery, which 
operates in deeper, offshore waters and targets elasmo- 
branchs and a mix of other teleost species as well as 
A. gouldii, catches larger and older individuals of that 
species. Because the catches of the commercial fishery 
are buffered by the presence of a greater number of 
age classes than the recreational fishery, the commer- 
cial catches are less likely to experience the effects of 
recruitment variability. The use of a single control is 
therefore likely to have more effect on one fishing sector 
than the other. The strategies developed for managing 
A. gouldii in the future will need to balance the ways 
in which they affect the different fishing sectors. Fur- 
thermore, if fishing crews are to accept management 
controls, they will need to be informed of the impli- 
cations of the particular biological characteristics of 
A. gouldii for the fishery and the effects of catches by 
different fishing sectors on the stocks of this species. 
In summary, we have shown that the temperate A. 
gouldii is long lived (maximum age, 70 years), relatively 
slow growing and late maturing (~17 years) — charac- 
teristics that contrast with the those typically found 
in labrids, most of which are tropical. However, these 
characteristics are found with many large epinephelines 
(e.g., Morris et al., 2000) and numerous deep-water 
species (e.g., Koslow et al., 2000; Morato et al., 2006; 
Marriott et al., 2007), and they make these species 
particularly susceptible to overfishing. The variable re- 
cruitment of A. gouldii would also be likely to increase 
the susceptibility of this species to overfishing, as it 
does with other species (e.g., Koslow et al., 2000; Sa- 
dovy, 2001; Hawkins and Roberts, 2003). Furthermore, 
because A. gouldii does not typically change sex until a 
relatively old age (35-39 years), the abundance of the 
males of this protogynous hermaphrodite would be espe- 
cially at risk of becoming depleted through fishing. The 
results of this study emphasize the need to acquire a 
thorough understanding of the life cycle characteristics 
of species that will almost inevitably become increas- 
ingly exploited in the future and, as Coleman et al. 
(2000) pointed out for reef fishes in North America, and 
not interpret a lack of such information as representing 
the absence of a potential problem. 
Acknowledgments 
Gratitude is expressed to S. Cossington and many col- 
leagues at the Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, 
Murdoch University, for help in the field and to recre- 
ational fisherman J. Stuart and commercial fishermen G. 
Campbell, J. Thornton, and C. Gulloti for their generous 
assistance with sampling. Many large fish were kindly 
provided by All Seas Fish Supply and Great Southern 
Seafoods. We thank K. Smith and J. Brown for provid- 
ing water temperatures and F. Prokop, A. Pearce, and 
D. Gaughan for helpful comments. Special thanks are 
extended to G. Thompson for producing high quality 
histological slides of fish gonads and to B. Gillanders 
for kindly supplying length data for Achoerodus viri- 
dis. Financial support was provided by the Australian 
Fisheries and Research Development Corporation and 
Murdoch University. The project was carried out under 
animal ethics project number R1066/04. 
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