Bridging from single species tactical advice to ecosystem-based strategic advice Lesson 1: We should expect our models to fail, sometimes spectacularly so. But when we do we should take the opportunity to learn from the failure
Jan 16, 2016
Bridging from single species tactical advice to ecosystem-
based strategic advice
Lesson 1: We should expect our models to fail, sometimes spectacularly so. But when we do we should take the opportunity to learn from the failure
Traditional approach to fisheries management
• Management approach focuses on F via catch & effort regulation
– Stock assessments recommend B and F reference points
– SSC recommend ABC (<=OFL) that includes scientific uncertainty –tactical advice
– Council recommend ACT (<=ABC) that includes management uncertainty (implementation uncertainty)
• Stakeholders limited to
– Commercial fishery interests
– Managers (protecting societal interest)
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Approach to incorporating scientific uncertainty
• Select %ile of probability distribution
• Lack of data in many systems means that P* is becoming ordinal as cFlim
But this assumes that all stakeholders will want a maximal F
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Stakeholders can be responsible
Council recommendation• 10M Lbs quota• 3 fish bag limit• >24 in min size
Stakeholder choice• 8M Lbs quota• 2 fish bag limit• >28 in min size
How and why did recreational anglers, CCA, and NGOs become
more conservative than managers?
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Stakeholder-centered approach
Stakeholders propose objectives, options and performance
measures
Revise options and performance measuresModel development
and modification Stakeholders
Review
model results
Recommendations
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Model Structure• Abundance
• Mortality
• Catch
N = Abundance F = Inst. Fishing mort. RateM = Natural mort. Z = Total mort.p = migration ratey = year s = seasona = age x = sexo = area f = fishery
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Parameter uncertainty
• Simulations drew from parameter distributions that reflected either– Scientific uncertainty– System uncertainty
• Recreational F – used 3 scenarios: either increasing, constant and decreasing scenarios with white noise variability (lognormal CV 10%)
• Ran multiple simulations to yield distributions of outcomes
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Recommended optionsSSB F Season closure
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Lesson 2
• Don’t under-estimate the ability of stakeholders to understand complicated management questions and processes.
• Stakeholder involvement is critical at all stages of management– Objectives– Management alternatives– Evaluation
EAM
Strategic advice: Management policies that support long term fishery and ecosystem sustainability
What kind of EAM do you want?
Lesson 3: Understanding of EAM by managers and stakeholders is at a infant’s level - education is critical
Case Study: Chesapeake Bay Fishery Ecosystem Plan
• Ecosystem boundaries– ~350 fishes described in Chesapeake Bay– Variation in life history causes boundary problems
FEP: Boundary issues
• Biological– 2 Large marine ecosystems
• Human– 11 states– 3 multi-jurisdictional commissions– 2 regional management councils– 2 nations
FEP: Simple strategic advice
• Patterns based on total removals• Empirical evidence
suggests ~250,000 mt may be sustainable
• 75,000 mt of non-menhaden harvest has been sustained
Ecosystem dynamics
• Used to examine ecosystem context of single species management decisions– What would happen if the region achieved a goal of a
10-fold increase in oyster biomass?• Concerns
• Fisheries model in a “microscopic” ecosystem• My species wasn’t included• Are we modeling the tail or the dog?
• Modeling effort was not integrated into management
• Maryland Sea Grant asked to facilitate an ecosystem based process for the Chesapeake Bay
Case study: Atlantic menhaden• Estuarine-dependent pelagic planktivore that provides
ecosystem-services – by filtering phytoplankton– important prey resource for charismatic piscivores
• Stock migrates along coast from Florida to Maine• Juveniles use estuarine nursery areas
• Stock assessment (2006) indicates neither stock is not overfished, nor experiencing overfishing.
• Yet concerns expressed over “localized” depletion in Chesapeake Bay
Localized depletion?
• A spatially-restricted decline in abundance that impairs ecological function– Predator production– Nutrient export
• Otolith chemistry evidence suggests spatial structure
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Lower Mid Upper Upper 7 Upper 9
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MS-models
• Predator-prey model– Climate-driven recruitments are strongly negatively
correlated – Stochastic, correlated SR function
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Lesson 3
• Defining the question is essential– What is localized depletion?
• Models with different outputs can’t be compared– What are the common metrics
• Reference points for non fishery endpoints are needed
Case study: Regime shifts in the northwest Atlantic
• Dramatic shift from a groundfish-dominated community to an elasmobranch-dominated community
• Multiple explanatory hypotheses
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Year
Bio
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Gadids Flatfish Skates Other Dogfish
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ish
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rt (
103 d
)Groundfish & flounders Pelagic Elasmobranchs
Lesson 4:
• Even the most successful EM may not forecast the future state of the ecosystem– CBO budget forecasts have all been wrong, but
that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been useful.
• Managing expectation is critical
Recommendations• Given a goal, what approaches are feasible or useful?
– There needs to be a clear statement of what question is the model being used to ask
– Not all ecosystem questions require an EM• What comes first – goal or stakeholders?
– The stakeholders you have in the room will affect the stated goal or vision
– Engage stakeholders early and often• Strategic advice may not be of the form of control rules, e.g.,
ecosystem services– How then do EM feed into the management process,
particularly ?