Alida Bundy

Reconsidering the Consequences of Selective Fisheries

Balanced fishing across a range of species, stocks, and sizes could mitigate adverse effects and address food security better than increased selectivity. Concern about the impact of fishing on ecosystems and fisheries production is increasing (1, 2). Strategies to reduce these impacts while addressing the growing need for food security (3) include increasing selectivity (1, 2): capturing species, sexes, and sizes in proportions that differ from their occurrence in the ecosystem. Increasing evidence suggests that more selective fishing neither maximizes production nor minimizes impacts (4–7). Balanced harvesting would more effectively mitigate adverse ecological effects of fishing while supporting sustainable fisheries. This strategy, which challenges present management paradigms, distributes a moderate mortality from fishing across the widest possible range of species, stocks, and sizes in an ecosystem, in proportion to their natural productivity (8), so that the relative size and species composition is maintained.

If science is not the answer, what is? An alternative governance model for the world's fisheries

Worldwide, management of fisheries has repeatedly failed, despite substantial investment in scientific research, primarily in the natural sciences. We argue that the way in which ecosystems are viewed and the lack of explicit consideration of three key elements – corporate responsibility, social justice, and ethics –have contributed to this dismal history. Here, we turn classical ecosystem thinking on its head, proposing an alternative image of an “inverted trophic pyramid” that places humans at the bottom. The inverted pyramid encapsulates ecosystem-based management and the interdependent relationship between humans and the ecosystem. It requires business incentives, ethics, and a balance of power to prevent the pyramid from toppling and to avert a crisis.

Global in scope and regionally rich: an IndiSeas workshop helps shape the future of marine ecosystem indicators

This report summarizes the outcomes of an IndiSeas workshop aimed at using ecosystem indicators to evaluate the status of the world’s exploited marine ecosystems in support of an ecosystem approach to fisheries, and global policy drivers such as the 2020 targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Key issues covered relate to the selection and integration of multi-disciplinary indicators, including climate, biodiversity and human dimension indicators, and to the development of data- and model-based methods to test the performance of ecosystem indicators in providing support for fisheries management. To enhance the robustness of our cross-system comparison, unprecedented effort was put in gathering regional experts from developed and developing countries, working together on multi-institutional survey datasets, and using the most up-to-date ecosystem models.

Ecosystem Modelling Using the Ecopath with Ecosim Approach

Marine ecosystems are dynamic and complex, with interactions, feedbackloopsandenvironmentaleffectsoccurringconcurrently.Fishingactivitiesimpacton their structure and functioning, modifying their features and affectingthe interactions established between their biological components. The task ofmaking predictions of future states of the ecosystem and understanding marineresource dynamics might seem Herculean or madness, even with reductionistmodelling approaches. It is a large task which has been simplified and madetractable with the development of the ecosystem modelling software system,Ecopath with Ecosim (Polovina 1984, Walters et al. 1997, Pauly et al. 2000). Inrecent years, it has become an ecosystem modelling tool that is used globallyforstaticanalysesofmarineecosystemsandtropho-dynamicandspatialsimula-tions. This chapter briefly reviews the history and development of Ecopath withEcosim (EwE) and describes the theory and assumptions on which is it based.Then it uses case studies to illustrate EwE utility and the insights it can bring tounderstand ecosystem structure and functioning, ecosystem changes and toexamine the likely consequences/benefits of different management options atthe ecosystem level.

Comparative analysis of marine ecosystems: international production modelling workshop

Understanding the drivers that dictate the productivity of marine ecosystems continues to be a globally important issue. A vast literature identifies three main processes that regulate the production dynamics of such ecosystems: biophysical, exploitative and trophodynamic. Exploring the prominence among this ‘triad’ of drivers, through a synthetic analysis, is critical for understanding how marine ecosystems function and subsequently produce fisheries resources of interest to humans. To explore this topic further, an international workshop was held on 10–14 May 2010, at the National Academy of Sciences Jonsson Center in Woods Hole, MA, USA. The workshop compiled the data required to develop production models at different hierarchical levels (e.g. species, guild, ecosystem) for many of the major Northern Hemisphere marine ecosystems that have supported notable fisheries. Analyses focused on comparable total system biomass production, functionally equivalent species production, or simulation studies for 11 different marine fishery ecosystems. Workshop activities also led to new analytical tools. Preliminary results suggested common patterns driving overall fisheries production in these ecosystems, but also highlighted variation in the relative importance of each among ecosystems.

The Ecological Effects of Fishing and Implications for Coastal Management in San Miguel Bay, the Philippines

This article uses ecological theory to explore the interactions between fishing and the ecosystem and to examine the implications for fisheries assessment and management in San Miguel Bay, the Philippines. The fishery is modeled using a trophodynamic multispecies model, Ecopath with Ecosim. The impacts of fishing by a multisector fishery on a multispecies resource were dynamically explored under top-down and bottom-up trophic hypotheses. The results demonstrated that the interplay of fishing mortality, species interactions and flow dynamics can have profound implications for fisheries assessment and management. Top-down control is more precautionary than bottom-up control. The uncertainties concerning the resource dynamics were explored using an adaptive management approach. Four models of the San Miguel Bay were analyzed: top-down, bottom-up, immigration plus top-down and immigration plus bottom-up. Results showed that there was no value in learning more about the uncertainty or distinguishing between the different resource models. It was concluded that although an active experimental adaptive management was not worthwhile, adaptive management, using feedback information from the response of the resource to management actions, was recommended.

You are what you eat, whenever or wherever you eat it: an integrative analysis of fish food habits in Canadian and U.S.A. waters

The degree to which fish diet differs by season and area, particularly over broad scales, was examined for the first time in temperate, contiguous north-west Atlantic Ocean waters by comparing food habit data for 10 species of fishes collected concurrently during the spring and autumn surveys in the U.S.A. (Gulf of Maine proper and Georges Bank) and in the summer survey in Canada (western Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy). For most species, there was a general concurrence among the three seasons and four areas: summer diets had the same dominant prey items as spring and autumn diets. Although a suite of multivariate analyses did elucidate some differences in specific proportions of the diet for these species across seasons and areas, the main prey did not substantially change for most of these species. These results suggest that there are (1) minimal differences in diet across season for these species at these taxonomic resolutions, (2) there are minimal differences in diet geographically for these species and (3) differences across species, as expected, are important. Many fisheries ecosystem and multispecies models are dependent on food habit data, where resolving seasonal and spatial differences in diet remains an important consideration; however, the present work implies that amalgamated estimates of diet from seasonal surveys may be a reasonable approach when no finer seasonal resolution exists, as long as due diligence is exercised.

Operationalizing integrated ecosystem assessments within a multidisciplinary team: lessons learned from a worked example

Operationalizing integrated ecosystem assessments within a multidisciplinary team: lessons learned from a worked example Geret S. DePiper*, Sarah K. Gaichas, Sean M. Lucey, Patricia Pinto da Silva, M. Robin Anderson, Heather Breeze, Alida Bundy, Patricia M. Clay, Gavin Fay, Robert J. Gamble, Robert S. Gregory, Paula S. Fratantoni, Catherine L. Johnson, Mariano Koen-Alonso, Kristin M. Kleisner, Julia Olson, Charles T. Perretti, Pierre Pepin, Fred Phelan, Vincent S. Saba, Laurel A. Smith, Jamie C. Tam, Nadine D. Templeman, and Robert P. Wildermuth NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, 166 Water Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, 80 East White Hills, St. John’s, NL A1C 5X1, Canada Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, 1 Challenger Drive, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 4A2, Canada School for Marine Science & Technology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 200 Mill Road, Suite 30, Fairhaven, MA 02719, USA Environmental Defense Fund, Floor 28, 123 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University Forrestal Campus, 201 Forrestal Road, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

Towards ecosystem-based management: identifying operational food-web indicators for marine ecosystems

Modern approaches to Ecosystem-Based Management and sustainable use of marine resources must account for the myriad of pressures (interspecies, human and environmental) affecting marine ecosystems. ...

A comparative appraisal of the resilience of marine social-ecological systems to mass mortalities of bivalves

In many parts of the world, both wild and cultured populations of bivalves have been struck by mass mortality episodes because of climatic and anthropogenic stressors whose causes and consequences are not always clearly understood. Such outbreaks have resulted in a range of responses from the social (fishers or farmers) and governing systems. We analyzed six commercial bivalve industries affected by mass mortalities using I-ADApT, a decision support framework to assess the impacts and consequences of these perturbations on the natural, social, and governing systems, and the consequent responses of stakeholders to these events. We propose a multidimensional resilience framework to assess resilience along the natural, social, and governing axes and to compare adaptive responses and their likelihood of success. The social capital and governability of the local communities were key factors affecting the communities’ resilience and adaptation to environmental changes, but the rapid degradation of natural ecosystems puts the bivalve industry under a growing threat. Bivalve mariculture and fishing industries are likely to experience increased frequency, severity, and prevalence of such mass mortality events if the resilience of the natural systems is not improved. An understanding of previous adaptation processes can inform strategies for building adaptive capacity to future events.