How can we produce accurate maps of fish populations when data is incomplete or unevenly collected? 🐟
This remains one of the major challenges in marine ecology, especially when combining information from scientific surveys and commercial fishing records.

The new paper — “Joint model for zero-inflated data combining fishery-dependent and fishery-independent sources” — recently published in Spatial Statistics, introduces an innovative five-layer statistical framework to address this challenge.

Co-authored by Gonçalo Araújo (NOVA SBE Environmental Economics Knowledge Center), the study develops a model that:
🔹 Integrates multiple data sources (fishery-dependent and independent);
🔹 Corrects for sampling bias, such as when fishing occurs mainly where fish are expected;
🔹 Handles “zero-inflated” data, a common issue in marine datasets where many locations have zero catches.

Applied to European sardine data along the Portuguese coast 🇵🇹, the model offers a more accurate and reliable representation of species distribution. Its findings have direct implications for evidence-based fisheries management and conservation strategies in the Atlantic.

👉 Read the full open-access article here: https://lnkd.in/df2WEhJx