Monitoring beaked redfish in the North Atlantic, current challenges and future prospects

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

Beaked redfish (Sebastes mentella) inhabit North Atlantic waters in the depth range 100–950 m, over the continental shelf, slope, and the open ocean and can be demersal or pelagic, at various stage of their life cycle. The geographical distribution of the species extends to most of the Atlantic waters from Newfoundland and the Labrador basin in the west to the Barents Sea in the east. The wide geographical distribution and large‐scale migrations, associated with a deep distribution which complicates trawling and hydroacoustic measurements as well as problems with tagging makes it a particularly challenging species to observe with conventional research methods We review these key challenges and explore possibilities for the coordinated observation of S. mentella in the North Atlantic that would best contribute to the assessment and ecological research of this species.