Integrated assessment of fishery systems

The Evolution and Ecology Program (EEP) is developing general approaches for integrated assessments of fishery systems that help reconcile multiple objectives:

• The success of a management system requires its objectives to be well defined. Different stakeholder groups, however, can hold very different views regarding which products and services are the most important. Some stakeholders may emphasize employment in the fishing sector, others profits or ecosystem conservation. Ultimately, managing aquatic systems requires reconciling the preferences of all stakeholders with legitimate interests in the resources and services these systems can provide. To facilitate identification of management options that are most likely to be agreeable to all stakeholders, EEP is developing a framework for the evaluation of joint stakeholder satisfaction based on multi-criteria utility functions [1].
• The human dimensions of sustainability can manifest in unexpected ways: model analyses suggest that fleet dynamics—resulting from the collective responses of fishers to changing fishing conditions—can sometimes accelerate the pace of fisheries-induced evolution [2].
• Traditionally, sustainability has been assessed mainly from an ecological perspective. Expanding this view, EEP’s research has drawn attention to the challenges of evolutionary sustainability, highlighting that fishing may favor adaptations that, in the long run, reduce the value of the provisioning services rendered by fish stocks. Addressing these challenges, the first comprehensive Evolutionary Impact Assessment (EvoIAs) was conducted on the North Sea plaice fishery [3] (Figure 1).
• Thanks to steadily developing theoretical and model-based analyses, the main characteristics of evolutionarily sustainable harvesting strategies are now emerging [3][4][5].
• Robust management systems need to consider emerging stressors proactively, such as rising temperatures resulting from climate change [6].
• A related case study presents the first multitarget fisheries assessment for two coastal communities in Hokkaido, Japan. The assessments enable forecasting responses to changing climatic, economic, and biological conditions [7].
  

Figure 1. By changing the size-selectivity of fishing gear (left), managers can alter the selection pressures on the maturation size threshold from negative to neutral or even positive, leading to markedly different evolutionary impacts in the future (right) [3].

Last edited: 20 April 2016