McKenna: Structure and dynamics of the fishery harvest in Broward County, Florida 
1 15 
only anecdotal reports of associations among harvested 
species exist. 
Concern about the effects of harvesting this re- 
source has stimulated research on the structure and 
dynamics of Florida’s marine fish community. Struc- 
ture of the harvest is related to the structure of the 
natural community and to the economics influenc- 
ing fishermen’s behavior. It integrates the differen- 
tial fishing mortality affecting the natural commu- 
nity. In 1984, the Florida Department of Environ- 
mental Protection (FDEP) established a trip-ticket 
reporting system (Marine Fisheries Information Sys- 
tem) to monitor the fishery harvest and provide a 
database of basic information on commercial land- 
ings from this resource. All dealers buying fish from 
fishermen or fishing for themselves must report the 
amounts of all species landed on each fishing trip. 
These records normally represent those species 
brought to shore on a single fishing trip and sold 
(landed). They do not include species or individuals 
caught and subsequently discarded, those used as 
bait, or those brought to shore but not sold. Harvest- 
ing occurs in many different ways (e.g. traps, nets, 
hook-and-line) and can have a variety of effects on 
the fishery resource and the natural community as 
a whole. A better understanding of the multispecies 
resource and the potential effects of the harvest can 
be gained by relating the structure and its variabil- 
ity to what is known about the natural fish assem- 
blage and the harvesting behavior of fishermen. This 
study uses commercial landings data collected by the 
Marine Fisheries Information System (MFIS) to ex- 
amine the structure and temporal dynamics of the har- 
vest in Broward County, Florida (Fig. 1), during 1989. 
Methods 
The MFIS database includes, but is not limited to, 
information on the weight of each species landed from 
each commercial fishing trip, the date on which those 
landings occurred, and the time spent fishing. Infor- 
mation on depth and fishing area were provided on 
a voluntary basis in 1989 but the spaces for report- 
ing such information were often left blank by report- 
ing dealers. Information on gear used was not provided. 
All commercial landings reported from Broward 
County during 1989 were used in this analysis. This 
subset of the MFIS database was chosen for this 
study because Broward County fisheries landings are 
some of the most valuable in the state. Furthermore, 
because 3,246 landings records (out of more than 2.5 
million) exist, it is computationally one of the most 
manageable data sets available. Each month of data 
was analyzed separately in an attempt to detect sea- 
sonal trends in species assemblage structure. 
Monthly assemblages were constructed on the basis 
of total monthly landings of each species. 
