Combining hydroacoustic seabed survey and grab sampling techniques to assess local sandeel population abundance

Sandeels (Ammodytes marinus) are a critical prey of many top predators in the North Sea, and have also been the target of a major industrial fishery. To quantify resource allocation between competing predators, and between natural predators and fishers, and to assess the impact of each source of mortality on sandeel population dynamics, estimates of the absolute abundance of sandeels at the spatial scale at which these interactions take place are required. In this study, hydroacoustic seabed survey and nocturnal grab surveys are combined to examine variation in the abundance of sandeels at a sandbank complex off southeast Scotland. Grab surveys provide point estimates of sandeel density and sediment composition data, which are used to define sandeel sediment preference categories. The total area of each sandeel sediment preference category is determined by hydroacoustic seabed survey. Sandeel population abundance recovered immediately following the closure of the sandeel fishery. However, simply closing the fishery was not sufficient to maintain the size of the local sandeel stock; the population is also highly dependent on good recruitment. We demonstrate how this combination of techniques might be used to examine variation in overwintering mortality rates in sandeels.