A Systematic Framework for Evaluating and Ranking Ecosystem Indicators for the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME)

NOAA is leading the development of integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) throughout the United States as part of an ongoing move toward ecosystem-based management of marine and coastal resources. One aspect of the IEA process emphasizes the development of ecosystem indicators - quantitative biological, chemical, physical, social, or economic measurements that serve as proxies of natural and socio-economic system conditions. As such, they provide a means to judge change in ecosystem attributes relative to management objectives and ecosystem risk. We use an established framework (Levin et al. 2009) to systematically evaluate and organize potential indicators of ecosystem health for the CCLME, for this presentation focusing on indicators associated with two attributes of ecosystem “health”: community composition (e.g., species diversity, functional group biomass) and energetics/material flow (e.g., carbon cycling, primary production). We identified 79 potential indicators from the peer-reviewed science literature and evaluated their potential to fulfill three categories of criteria: primary (essential information for providing scientifically useful guidance), data (measurement and availability of this information), and other (important non-scientific information). We outline the evaluation steps, scoring, and considerations used to select the final suite of 6 proposed indicators: Zooplankton species biomass anomalies, Taxonomic distinctness (average and variation), Top predator biomass, Seabird annual reproductive output, Chlorophyll a, and Inorganic nutrient levels. We emphasize that this indicator suite is preliminary and will likely evolve as 1. more data becomes available and 2. other formal criteria are instituted to quantify the quality of the science supporting each indicator during the evaluation process.