© Baker, J.L. (2009) Marine Species of Conservation Concern in South Australia Full citation Baker, J.L. (2009) Marine Species of Conservation Concern in South Australia: Volume 1 - Bony and Cartilaginous Fishes. Report for the South Australian Working Group for Marine Species of Conservation Concern. J. Baker (consultant); Science and Conservation Division, and Coast and Marine Conservation branches of S.A. Department for Environment and Heritage (DEH); Marine and Coastal Community Network of S.A. (MCCN), and Threatened Species Network (TSN). Web version published by Reef Watch, South Australia.

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Banded Bellowsfish

Family Name:	Macroramphosidae
Scientific Name:	Centriscops humerosus (Richardson, 1846)
Recommended Status in S.A:	(i) Least Concern in S.A. waters; (ii) Data Deficient, possibly Near Threatened in Commonwealth waters of south-eastern Australia
Rationale:  Although the Banded Bellowsfish has a broad geographic distribution and depth range, it is included here because (i) members of the snipefish family likely play an important ecological role, due to their natural abundance, diet, and consumption by a wide variety of predators; (ii) C. humerosus is vulnerable to capture by trawl, and is a discarded bycatch in a number of Commonwealth-managed fisheries, such as the South East Trawl Fishery and the Great Australian Bight Trawl Fishery; (iii) in draft risk assessments for the SETF and the GABTF, the species has been listed as “high risk” in terms of population impacts from trawl capture; and (iv) there is little information about the biology (such as fecundity, annual recruitment strength, and  longevity), population dynamics, or relative abundance of this species in southern Australian waters. The species is listed here as Least Concern in S.A. waters because the main part of the depth range is not in State-managed continental shelf waters, but in Commonwealth-managed waters, where a significant threatening process (fish trawling) occurs. It is noted that deeper water prawn trawl fishing in N.S.W. may also be a threatening processes for Banded Bellowsfish in eastern Australia.

Page Contents

Current Conservation Status

No listings known

Distribution

General

The Banded Bellowsfish is found in southern Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and parts of the southern Indian Ocean, and southern and south-eastern South America, with the southern limit of distribution being 55º south, off Macquarie Island (Heemstra, 1986; Duhamel, 1995, cited by Stewart and Roberts, 2004). Examples of islands in far southern latitudes where the species has been recorded include Tristan da Cunha, Gough I., St Paul I., Amsterdam I., (Hureau, 1991; Heemstra, 1995; Anonymous, 2000c).
In New Zealand, the Banded Bellowsfish occurs from Northland to the Campbell Plateau, on the Challenger Plateau to the west, and around the Chatham Islands to the east (Roberts, 1991; Beentjes et al., 2002; Stewart and Roberts, 2004). Between eastern Australia and New Zealand, C. humerosus has also been recorded from the vicinity of the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise (Clarke et al., 2004).

Southern Australia

In Australia, the species has been recorded right across the southern half of the continent, from the central west coast of W.A., through to the central coast of N.S.W., including Tasmania (OZCAM database, 2007; CSIRO, 2007).

South Australia

South Australia is the type locality (Eschmeyer, 2001).
Examples of locations in S.A. where C. humerosus has been recorded include the S.A. / W.A. border; south-eastern Great Australian Bight / western tip of Eyre Peninsula; the south-east of S.A. (e.g. deeper waters south-west of Beachport), and the S.A. / Victorian border area (Australian Museum records, South Australian Museum record, Museum of Victoria records, cited in OZCAM database, 2007).

Habitat

The Banded Bellowsfish is found on the continental shelf and slope, between approximately 100m  and 1000m deep (Stewart and Roberts, 2004), but more usually between 300m and 700m (CSIRO et al., 2001; Stewart and Roberts, 2004).
The habitat has been described as rocky, sandy or muddy bottom (University of British Columbia, 2006).

Notes on the Biology

The Banded Bellowsfish grows to about 30cm (Stewart and Roberts, 2004).

Diet and Feeding Behaviour

The species eats mainly benthic invertebrates, such as crustacean and ophiuroids (Bulman and Blaber, 1987; Heemstra, 1995). The species had been described as an epibenthic invertebrate feeder that supplements its diet seasonally with fishes, such as lantern fish Lampanyctodes hectoris (Bulman and Blaber, 1987, also cited by Prince, 2001). Younger individuals may also pick animals from the plankton.

Reproduction

Species in the family are oviparous, with planktonic eggs and larvae (Watson, 1996, cited in Froese and Pauly, 2007).

Fisheries Information

Southern Australia

Banded Bellowsfish is listed as one of the bycatch species in the Commonwealth-managed Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) (AFMA, 2002a). According to AFMA, bycatch sampling during an Integrated Scientific Monitoring Program (ISMP) in 2001, showed that 643kg of C. humerosus (AFMA, 2002a) and 475kg of the same species, as “C. obliquus” (AFMA, 2003g) were caught in the South East Trawl Fishery (SETF), and all was discarded (AFMA, 2002a). However, Wayte et al. (2004) reported that in the otter trawl sub-fishery of the SETF, the ISMP recorded about 6.87 tonnes of Banded Bellowsfish discarded in 840 trawl shots, which is equivalent to about 8kg per trawl shot. The species has also been recorded as a minor part of the bycatch in the Danish seine sub-fishery of the SETF (Wayte et al., 2004).
Banded Bellowsfish is also part of the bycatch in the scalefish trap sector of the Gillnet, Hook and Trap fishery (Webb et al., 2004), and the Great Australian Bight Trawl fishery (Bromhead and Bolton, 2005). It is noted that during bycatch sampling in the GABTF during the early 2000s, the species was not reported (e.g. Brown and Knuckey, 2002).
The species is part of the bycatch in the Ocean Prawn Trawl and Ocean Fish Trawl fisheries in New South Wales, with a high frequency of occurrence (41% of trawls, according to one survey) in the deepwater sector of the ocean prawn trawl fishery (N.S.W. Department of Primary Industries, 2004).
There are museum records of the specimens that were taken by commercial fishing in the Bass Strait region (Anonymous, 2002b).

New Zealand

Centriscops species are listed as commercial species in New Zealand, in the “High Seas Fishing” area (NZ Ministry of Fisheries web site, January 2005), but catch details are not available for this report.

Vulnerable Characteristics of the Species and Threatening Processes

Fishing may be a threatening process to C. humerosus populations. The species is reported to suffer barotrauma when caught in trawl bycatch (N.S.W. Department of Primary Industries, 2004), and in New South Wales, is classified as a species of “high fisheries impact potential”, with low to moderate resilience, but overall at “intermediate to high risk” of population impacts from trawl fishing (N.S.W. Department of Primary Industries, 2004).
In 2006, an Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) for species in the Great Australian Bight Trawl Fishery (Daley et al., 2006), provisionally ranked C. humerosus as a “high risk” species, in terms of population impacts from capture in the GAB trawl fishery, with the proviso that some of the data (e.g. on fecundity) required for an accurate assessment do not exist, and therefore that the species might be at lower risk than the classification. In a draft ecological risk assessment for the South East Trawl Fishery, Banded Bellowsfish was listed as being at “high risk” (C. obliquus) or “medium risk” (C. humerosus) of population impacts from bycatch in that fishery (Wayte et al., 2004). In comparison, in the scalefish trap sector of the Gillnet, Hook and Trap fishery in southern Australia, the species was ranked as being at “low risk” of population impacts from bycatch (Webb et al., 2004).

Research Requirements

There is little information about the biology (such as fecundity, annual recruitment strength, and longevity), population dynamics, or relative abundance of this species in southern Australian waters.

Management Requirements

Measures are required where possible to reduce trawl bycatch in Commonwealth-managed fisheries, which may be a significant source of mortality in some areas.

Other Information

Given the abundance and trophic level of snipefishes and bellowsfishes (i.e. they consume numerous types of invertebrates, as well as small fishes) - and are in turn consumed by higher order predatory fishes, sharks, dolphins, sea birds and other fauna - these fishes likely support an important ecological role in food webs in continental shelf and slope waters wherever they are found, including southern Australia.