Leandro Castello, Ph.D.
- Title
- Assistant Professor
- Institution
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- Country
- USA
- [email protected]
- Award year
- 2017
Research
Using fishers’ knowledge of catch rates to conserve tropical fisheries
Leandro Castello, Ph.D., studies the ecology and conservation of fish and fisheries with the aim of solving the problems of tropical fisheries. His research encompasses fish populations, human communities, and ecosystems and uses various methods to address key issues.
Information on the status and use of fish resources is vital for conservation, but scarce in tropical fisheries. A growing approach to generate information relies on surveys of fishers about how they recall past harvests.
Castello used his Pew marine fellowship to assess and further develop the use of harvest recalls to produce historical information. Based on data for 24 fisheries, he showed that harvest recalls can be as accurate as data collected by standardized protocols, despite that recalls are variable and affected by the age of the recollecting person and the length of time elapsed since the event. Samples of harvest recalls permit relatively reliable reconstruction of harvests for up to 39 years in the past. Harvest recalls therefore have a strong potential to inform data-poor fisheries and curb shifting baselines around the tropics at a fraction of the cost of conventional approaches. Castello produced a website (www.mucaua.org) describing how to produce harvest recall data and is working to implement the approach in management initiatives.
To learn more about Castello, read his bio.
See the full list of 2017 Pew marine fellows.