Fisheries-Independent Monitoring in Florida: A Cost-Effective Approach to Supporting Ecosystem-Based Assessment

Florida’s Marine Fisheries Independent Monitoring (FIM) program is an important component in the management of Florida’s estuarine and coastal fisheries and ecosystems. Originally developed in Tampa Bay to address declines in Sciaenops ocellatus landings, the program has expanded to assess relative abundance trends for most nekton species collected in six estuarine areas throughout Florida. The FIM program collections provide information on community structure, habitat associations, and classical fisheries parameters (e.g., abundance, age, growth, reproduction); all which are essential data components in ecosystem-based assessments.  Collected data have proven instrumental beyond their original stock assessment role, having been used to assess the impacts of events (e.g., red tides, cold fronts, oil spills) and long-term changes (e.g., freshwater withdraws, climate change) on fish abundance, fish health, and community structure. The comprehensive utility of the data demonstrate great efficiency and cost-benefit.  The program builds in adaptability to assess habitat-specific species associations while maintaining the integrity of the long-term data. For example, variability in relative abundance indices for juvenile gag was greatly reduced through the addition of seasonal, polyhaline seagrass surveys. This presentation will provide an overview of the FIM program, including discussion on program development and the broad applicability of collected data.