Comparative Analysis of Marine Fisheries and Ecosystems

Effective management of our living marine resources requires greater understanding of ecosystem processes and underlying dynamics.  Comparative studies applied across various spatial and temporal scales provide a unique opportunity to increase understanding of and predictive capability for marine ecosystem organization and production.  Comparative analyses can be utilized in situations where direct experimentation is not feasible due to the necessary temporal and spatial scales for ecosystem-level studies.  Both within and among ecosystem comparisons can lead to an improved understanding of processes controlling ecosystem structure, productivity, behavior, resilience, and population connectivity, as well as effects of climate variability and anthropogenic pressures on living marine resources and critical habitats.  This symposium will emphasize comparative approaches to tackling questions concerning marine populations, ecosystems, and their management.  

While there are many important drivers of marine ecosystems, this symposium will focus on the effects of climate change, fishing and the interactions between them. Climate change affects marine ecosystems both directly, through changes in species distributions and vital rates, and indirectly, through changes in ecological interactions among species. Fisheries are social-ecological systems and the impacts of fishing on ecosystems are determined by the complex interplay between management, fishermen, and the natural environment.  Marine ecosystems around the world present a wealth of contrasts that can be used to examine the impacts of climate and fishing, as well as the relative success of management in mitigating these impacts.  

This symposium fits perfectly with this year’s meeting theme, “New Frontiers in Fisheries Management and Ecology: Leading the Way in a Changing World”, as ecosystem approaches are central to fisheries management.  Increased ecosystem knowledge will help to provide scientific support necessary for ecosystem-based management of vital resources and improve decision support tools.