SFA & IRD - 40 years of research partnerships J. Lebranchu, C. Violette, L. Dagorn, P. Guillotreau (IRD/MARBEC) I. Context IRD’s principal mission is to generate science centred on the intertropical and Mediterranean zone and founded on equitable scientiﬁc partnership with the higher education and research commu- nities (ESR) of the countries and regions concerned. This mission has a dual purpose: • Contributing to advances in scientiﬁc knowledge in matters of sustainable development • Helping to give development policies a better grounding in science. IRD is present in Seychelles since 1980 (Port of Victo- ria in 1982 in front of the three of four French purse seiner). IRD has structured his research around SDG imple- mentation and Seychelles priorities, especially on preserving biodiversity and sustainable management of ocean resources. IRD has been working on diﬀerent domains: - the history of Seychelles (published in 1983), - a botanical inventory of the Seychelles' ﬂora in the 1980s and a book published in 2014 - but IRD has mainly worked on ﬁsheries and their impacts in collaboration with SFA (i.e "The Seychelles's blue gold", 2014). An overview of some studies are presented below. II. Fisheries studies A. FADIO (2003 - 2006) - 10 partners (IRD, SFA,…) from 6 countries i. FADIO (2003 - 2006) - 10 partners (IRD, SFA,…) from 6 countries FADIO (Fish Aggregating Devices as instrumented Observatories of pelagic ecosys- tems) is a project funded by the EU with two mains goals : - Objective 1: Development of prototypes: new electronic tags and instrumented buoys to observe ﬁsh aggregations around FADS - Objective 2: Improving knowledge on on pelagic ﬁsh around FADs Three main achievements: • Contributed to the development and successfully tested the ﬁrst satellite-linked acoustic re- ceiver (listening station) that allows remote, real-time monitoring of open ocean ﬁsh implanted with sonic transmitters • Obtained ﬁrst scientiﬁc descriptions of the species that comprise the community of animals associated with drifting FADs. • Obtained ﬁrst measurements of residence times and swimming depths of tuna and other pelagic ﬁsh around drifting FADs. Estimated the orientation distance of dolphinﬁsh on FADs using an experimental approach. B. MADE (2008 - 2012) - 13 partners (IRD, SFA,…) from 8 countries ii. MADE (2008 - 2012) - 13 partners (IRD, SFA,…) from 8 countries MADE (Mitigating ADverse Ecological impacts of open ocean ﬁsheries) aims at proposing mea- sures: • To reduce by-catch of sharks and juvenile swordﬁsh by pelagic longliners. • To reduce by-catch of sharks and turtles, and juvenile tunas by tuna purse seiners. • To assess the eﬀects of FADs on ﬁsh ecology (to assess how much the release of FADs modi- ﬁes the habitat and aﬀects the ecology of ﬁsh). The project follows a multidisciplinary and integrated approach to achieve its objectives: • Behavioural studies, electronic tags (pop-up archival and acoustic tags) on sharks, juvenile swordﬁsh and tuna. • Biological studies, trophodynamism, growth of sharks. • Socio-economical studies, economic eﬃciency indicators.  FOCUS: Results to reduce the shark mortality • Two independent methods have shown the extent of the issue of entanglement of sharks in nets of FADs in the Indian Ocean ==> future design of FADs should not have any netting • Guide of good practices to reduce the mortality of sharks and rays III. Data management for pelagic fisheries (from 1984) During the 1980s and 1990s, IRD and SFA scientists have developed diﬀerent ﬁsheries monitoring systems in Seychelles. Since 2000, IRD and SFA have collaborated to develop a shared informa- tion system focused on large pelagic monitoring. Figure 1: Example of collected data and associated data ﬂow IV. Biology studies IRD and SFA have conducted many studies to better understand the biology and the food web of the pelagic species, like in 2014 with the EMOTION project on tuna reproductive cycle. Figure 2: Female tuna reproductive