The declines occurred on a timescale equal to, or slightly less than, a single generation of these species.
They meet the IUCN [World Conservation Union] criteria for being critically endangered.
Species declines change predator-prey dynamics, energy flow through systems, and ecosystem resilience, stability, function, and form.
Relative abundance is an index of what's out there. We know a lot of these species move, but within what we have the data for, we are seeing this decline range.
These are species no one really cares about, but they play a key role in the ecosystem.
We're talking about species whose generation time, which is the amount of time (they need) to replace themselves, is 17 to 21 years. So it will be a century before we see any recovery.
We're learning time and time again as fishery after fishery collapses that you reach such low numbers that they can be considered extinct.
A recent article in Science has shown how a marine protected area in shallower habitat has been effective. Additionally, we have seen the call for reduced fishing mortality on deep-sea stocks in the Northeast Atlantic and believe that could be an appropriate conservation measure.
We expected to see declines, but we didn't expect such severe declines. If nothing changes, we could be facing barren oceans or oceans of fish we can't utilize.
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