Gearing up for fisheries as part of whole-system EBM

EBM for fisheries (and other marine dependent activities) requires new diagnostics, control rules, and reference points; ecological monitoring that is quite different from stock assessment; computational whole-system ecological economic modeling, and graphic simulation decision tools.  EBM exclusive to fisheries may not be viable, while holistic EBM inclusive of all ecosystem services is a daunting challenge and awkward under current US law.  Here we examine the interplay between monitoring and modeling for adaptive, ecosystem-based management of fisheries in the legal environments of California and Massachusetts, both of which now aspire to a whole-system, all-service, EBM approach and seek to balance food provisioning with competing ecosystem services.  We compare strengths, complementarities, and weaknesses in three existing tools developed for whole-system EBM: InVEST, MIMES, and ARIES, viewed through the lens of fisheries management in particular. Area management (aka marine spatial planning) is taken to be a manipulative spatial experiment, with treatment levels corresponding to management regimes.  Trade-offs among gear sectors inherent to ecosystem-based fisheries management (where incentives are strong and progress may be accelerated) can help in laying the groundwork for whole-system EBM.