TY - JOUR
T1 - How fisher behavior can bias stock assessment
T2 - Insights from an agent-based modeling approach
AU - Saul, Steven
AU - Brooks, Elizabeth N.
AU - Die, David
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by the NOAA – Sea Grant Population Dynamics Fellowship Grant Award NA080AR4170763, NOAA Cooperative agreement NA17RJ1226 through University of Miami, and an International Light Tackle Tournament Association Scholarship. This manuscript has benefited greatly from the feedback of several peer reviewers and the editorial assistant.
Funding Information:
This work was funded by the NOAA – Sea Grant Population Dynamics Fellowship Grant Award NA080AR4170763, NOAA Co-operative agreement NA17RJ1226 through University of Miami, and an International Light Tackle Tournament Association Scholarship. This manuscript has benefited greatly from the feedback of several peer reviewers and the editorial assistant.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Canadian Science Publishing. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - During stock assessment, fishery-dependent observations are often used to develop indices of abundance or biomass from catch per unit of effort (CPUE) and contribute catch at size or age information. However, fisher behavior, rather than scientific sampling protocols, determines the spatial and temporal locations of fishery-dependent observations. As a result, trends from fishery-dependent data may be a function of fishing activity rather than fish population changes. This study evaluates whether data collected from commercial fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico are representative of trends in fish population size. A coupled bioeconomic agent-based model was developed to generate simulated fishery data, which were used to populate an age-structured stock assessment. Comparison of stock assessment results with simulated fish population dynamics showed that management advice from assessment models based on fishery-dependent data could be biased. Assessment of fish with small home ranges harvested by fishing fleets that frequent the same fishing grounds could cause overestimation of fishing mortality. Not accounting for the spatial structure of the fishers or fish can cause biased estimates of population status.
AB - During stock assessment, fishery-dependent observations are often used to develop indices of abundance or biomass from catch per unit of effort (CPUE) and contribute catch at size or age information. However, fisher behavior, rather than scientific sampling protocols, determines the spatial and temporal locations of fishery-dependent observations. As a result, trends from fishery-dependent data may be a function of fishing activity rather than fish population changes. This study evaluates whether data collected from commercial fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico are representative of trends in fish population size. A coupled bioeconomic agent-based model was developed to generate simulated fishery data, which were used to populate an age-structured stock assessment. Comparison of stock assessment results with simulated fish population dynamics showed that management advice from assessment models based on fishery-dependent data could be biased. Assessment of fish with small home ranges harvested by fishing fleets that frequent the same fishing grounds could cause overestimation of fishing mortality. Not accounting for the spatial structure of the fishers or fish can cause biased estimates of population status.
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U2 - 10.1139/cjfas-2019-0025
DO - 10.1139/cjfas-2019-0025
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85094668715
SN - 0706-652X
VL - 77
SP - 1794
EP - 1809
JO - Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
JF - Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
IS - 11
ER -