Life histories decide reserve benefits in transient yields and bycatch persistence

Recent research indicates that marine reserves can both improve fisheries yields of target species and maintain the persistence of bycatch species. However, the prevalent equilibrium analyses prevent our understandings in transient behavior at short-time scales. Here, we develop high dimensional theoretical frameworks by considering age structure to assess the relative advantages between reserve-only and no-reserve fisheries management strategies. Our results show that whether strategies with only reserves can achieve higher fisheries yields (measured by both weight and number) and maintain bycatch persistence depends on the life histories of both target and bycatch species through perspectives of transient oscillations. Our research has important practical applications especially for the West Coast groundfish fishery in the USA, as it suggests that reserves can perform benefits in both fisheries and conservation goals for target species with older ages at maturity and lower adult survivorship.