Global Contributions of Forage Fish to World Fisheries and Ecosystems

Forage fish are pivotal to marine ecosystems and coastal economies around the world in a variety of ways. First, forage fish are valued as direct fisheries catch, representing some of the largest fisheries in the world. They also provide an important ecological support service as prey for higher trophic predators. This research is aimed at increasing our global understanding of how valuable forage fish are in marine ecosystems—both economically and ecologically. In order to quantify this, we conducted a meta-analysis of 72 Ecopath models from around the world, representing a wide variety of ecosystem types and latitudes. We examined three distinct roles of forage fish: 1) As an economic commodity (direct catch); 2) As prey for larger fish species that are commercially harvested; and 3) As prey for non-commercial predators.  Here, we present the results in terms of both monetary value and catch volume, and identify patterns across latitudes and ecosystem types (e.g. upwelling ecosystems, tropical lagoons, Arctic ecosystems). These results show where forage fish are most important, and provide information that managers can use in addressing the tradeoffs between catching forage fish and leaving them to fulfill their ecological role.