Martin W. Dorn

Advice on West Coast Rockfish Harvest Rates from Bayesian Meta-Analysis of Stock−Recruit Relationships

Abstract Over the past two decades, populations of rockfish Sebastes spp. off the U.S. West Coast have declined sharply, leading to heightened concern about the sustainability of current harvest policies for these populations. In this paper, I develop a hierarchical Bayesian model to jointly estimate the stock−recruit relationships of rockfish stocks in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. Stock−recruit curves for individual stocks are linked using a prior distribution for the “steepness” parameter of the Beverton–Holt stock−recruit curve, defined as the expected recruitment at 20% of unfished biomass relative to unfished recruitment. The choice of a spawning biomass per recruit (SPR) harvest rate is considered a problem in decision theory, in which different options are evaluated in the presence of uncertainty in the stock−recruit relationship. Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling is used to obtain the marginal distributions of variables of interest to management, such as the yield at a given SPR rate. A wide ra...

The impact of regime shifts on the performance of management strategies for the Gulf of Alaska walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) fishery

Climate variability affects marine ecosystems. The mechanisms relating low-frequency environmental fluctuations (regime shifts) and their impacts on marine populations are not well established for most species, but there is an expectation that the accuracy of scientific advice provided to fisheries management would be improved if management strategies incorporated the effects of regime shifts on stocks. Management strategy evaluation is used to examine the impact of regime shifts in average recruitment on the performance of management strategies for the fishery for walleye pollock, Theragra chalcogramma, in the Gulf of Alaska. The current and four alternative management strategies are evaluated. The alternatives include management strategies with different definitions of the average recruitment used when calculating management reference points, e.g., a 25-year sliding-window method and a “dynamic B0” method. The current management strategy, which ignores the possibility of future regime shifts, kept the s...

Measuring Total Catch at Sea: Use of a Motion-Compensated Flow Scale to Evaluate Observer Volumetric Methods

Abstract We evaluated procedures used by North Pacific groundfish observers to estimate total catch aboard a factory trawler in the Bering Sea during 1997. A motion-compensated flow scale was tested for precision and bias by using known weights of fish. The flow scale performed within an error limit of 3% in daily tests, although a positive bias of +1% was detected. We used flow scale weights to evaluate volumetric methods of haul weight estimation: codend volume and bin volume measurements by observers and bin volume measurements by electronic bin sensors. Codend volume estimates were most variable; slight volume overestimation was detected for codends larger than the trawl alley, and significant between-observer differences were detected. Bin volume estimates were more precise than codend volume estimates and showed no differences between observers. Bin sensor volume estimates agreed closely with observer visual estimates when fish level was at least 1 m below the transducers but gave inaccurate reading...

Interannual and Spatial Variability in Maturity of Walleye Pollock Gadus chalcogrammus and Implications for Spawning Stock Biomass Estimates in the Gulf of Alaska

Catch quotas for walleye pollock Gadus chalcogrammus, the dominant species in the groundfish fishery off Alaska, are set by applying harvest control rules to annual estimates of spawning stock biomass (SSB) from age-structured stock assessments. Adult walleye pollock abundance and maturity status have been monitored in early spring in Shelikof Strait in the Gulf of Alaska for almost three decades. The sampling strategy for maturity status is largely characterized as targeted, albeit opportunistic, sampling of trawl tows made during hydroacoustic surveys. Trawl sampling during pre-spawning biomass surveys, which do not adequately account for spatial patterns in the distribution of immature and mature fish, can bias estimated maturity ogives from which SSB is calculated. Utilizing these maturity data, we developed mixed-effects generalized additive models to examine spatial and temporal patterns in walleye pollock maturity and the influence of these patterns on estimates of SSB. Current stock assessment practice is to estimate SSB as the product of annual estimates of numbers at age, weight at age, and mean maturity at age for 1983-present. In practice, we found this strategy to be conservative for a time period from 2003–2013 as, on average, it underestimates SSB by a 4.7 to 11.9% difference when compared to our estimates of SSB that account for spatial structure or both temporal and spatial structure. Inclusion of spatially explicit information for walleye pollock maturity has implications for understanding stock reproductive biology and thus the setting of sustainable harvest rates used to manage this valuable fishery.