Data-Limited Stock Assessment Methods Applied to Global Coral Reef Fisheries

Although coral reef fisheries represent a small percentage of global catch, they provide food security for many of the world’s poorest peoples. Stock assessments assist managers in maintaining sustainable harvest, but are rarely conducted in developing countries and small-scale fisheries due to lack of data and training to run appropriate models. We applied Depletion Based-Stock Reduction Analysis (DB-SRA), a data-limited assessment model developed for rare and bycatch species in the U.S., to coral reef fisheries from the FAO capture fisheries database. These methods use only a time series of landings and prior information on depletion, natural mortality, and age at maturity. We separated reef-associated taxa by species group, ocean area, and country to estimate biomass trends, overfishing limits, and productivity of reef fish on various spatial and taxonomic scales. Our research provides estimates of global coral reef fisheries status, with the added benefit of serving as a guide for applying data-limited assessment methods to other small-scale or data-limited fisheries. Improving communication between users (stakeholders and managers) and developers (stock assessment scientists) will broaden our application of data-limited assessment models worldwide, with the goal of improving fishing practices for healthy reef habitats and maintaining sustainable food resources to support local economies.