Approche empirique de la pecherie d'espadon (Xiphias gladius) dans l'ocean Indien et modelisation des deplacements des poissons dans le paysage oceanique tropical

Long-line fishing has been growing on the island of La Réunion since the beginning of the 1990s. The target species is the swordfish (Xiphias gladius), fished mainly in the tropical waters surrounding the island between longitudes 45 degree E and 60 degree E, and latitudes 17 degree S and 27 degree S. From 1998 to 2000, a finalised research programme enabled the collection of precise data concerning the lines' positions and the parameters of the fishing efforts: 3,602 nettings were thus informed by the catches (in numbers of individuals caught) and 12 descriptive variables of the effort. In parallel with this collection effort, satellite maps that described the ocean's landscape of this region of the Indian Ocean exploited by La Réunion's fisheries were made available to sailors and scientists. Extractions from these environmental variables were made at the fishing lines' positions, which allowed us to propose 20 variables describing the environmental conditions of swordfish catches applied to the nettings. In an early part of this study, after a descriptive analysis and a first selection of the variables, we used several GAM (Generalised Additive Models) to model the respective effects of effort and environmental variables on the variability of swordfish catches. We thus highlighted the predominance of factors linked to fishermen (fishing effort) on oceanographic factors in the explanation of this variability. Following these results, a summary on the biology and ecology of the swordfish was proposed in order to draw up hypotheses on the characteristics of this species' population in the Indian Ocean. The aspects linked to the individual behaviour and movements of the population were particularly highlighted. In a latter part of this study and in order to complete the empirical approach by an exploratory constructivist approach, we proposed a modelling tool in order to simulate the possible movements of individuals within the oceanic landscape described by the available satellite maps. After reading in the literature about the various forms of modelling the movements of the large pelagics, we developed an original computer modelling architecture of the multi-agent type that made it possible to manipulate in a dynamic way the satellite maps (and derived products), the individual movements of "animats" whose behaviours were based on this environmental information, and agents that clarify the process of long-line fishing in a geographical way. The computer model that was implemented (MUFINS, for MUlti-Fish INdian ocean Simulator) was next used by calibrating the behaviour of the animats on the real data originally from the analysis of commercial catches proposed in the first part, using robust techniques based on fuzzy logic. The results of the simulations were compared, on the one hand, with the large-scale hypotheses of movement proposed in the first part, and, on the other hand, to swordfish catches both real and corrected for the effect of the fishing effort modelled by the GAM models. Even if the results of these simulations in this study do not allow for proposing convincing interpretations of the underlying processes, the MUFINS tool showed its ability to address questions associated with the swordfish's behaviour in the tropical oceanic landscape and to the effects of scale transfers between the individual level and the collective level. We now envisage its use in a more operational framework, as an interface for dialogue between fishermen and scientists with a goal of sustainable management of the resource.