The contribution of recreational angling as a prominent ecosystem service has recently gained momentum. In some inland freshwater ecosystems, recreational angling may be the dominant, structuring social-ecological process. Yet, much uncertainty exists concerning the role of scale and individual social and ecological attributes within recreational fisheries, particularly those related to angler behavior. To reduce this uncertainty, our objectives were to 1) characterize and understand intra-annual patterns in angling pressure (i.e., hours spent angling) across spatial scales and 2) link those patterns to social and ecological attributes. Instantaneous angler counts and angler interviews were completed onsite from April through October at 34 waterbodies across Nebraska, USA, for five years, providing a 111 waterbody-year data set. We evaluated the level of synchrony and spatial dependence of angling pressure among waterbodies using cross-correlation analysis and variograms, respectively. Angling pressure was further related to large-scale weather variables, to test for the Moran effect. Waterbodies were grouped by similar patterns in pressure using time series cluster analysis and evaluated across groups for differences in density of anglers at each waterbody, waterbody size, size of angler party, composition of angler type (bank or boat), catch rate, and species richness of catch.
Results/Conclusions
A moderate amount of synchrony was observed in angling pressure, yet was unrelated to distance between waterbodies. Angling pressure generally increased with temperature, providing support for the Moran effect. Time series cluster analysis revealed three distinct waterbody groups, best characterized by low-, moderate-, and high-angler pressure. Surprisingly, the high-angler-pressure waterbodies received the least amount of pressure per hectare; these high-angler-pressure waterbodies were the largest in size, contained the largest party size comprised primarily of boat anglers, had the lowest catch rate, and had the greatest species richness in catch. In contrast, the low-angler-pressure waterbodies had a moderate amount of angling pressure per hectare, were smallest in size, contained smaller party sizes comprised primarily of bank anglers, had a higher catch rate, and had the lowest species richness in catch. Our results highlight the interplay between spatial distribution of waterbodies and socioecological diversity within and among recreational fisheries. We gained new insight and application to cultural, provisioning, regulating and supporting ecosystem services generated by inland fisheries. Angling pressure is an important structuring process within inland freshwater fisheries and is governed by both large- and small-scale factors, related to both social- (e.g., party size) and ecological- (e.g., weather, catch richness) attributes.