Benefits Provided By Freshwater Fish Standard Sampling in Research and Education

In recent decades the standardisation of equipment and protocols has delivered society-wide benefits to domestic consumers, industry and indeed to many areas of science.  However, such standardisation has been remarkably slow in freshwater fish and fisheries science operating at national and international scales.  Part of the reason behind this slow adoption is a perception by some researchers that differences between regions or countries invalidate standard techniques or that they reduce innovation by individual researchers.  Recent experience in Europe following the widespread adoption of survey gill netting to European Standard EN 14757:2005 shows that such concerns are ill founded.  In contrast, the adoption of a standardised protocol for the use of gill nets in lakes has demonstrably and positively transformed research at the continental scale.  Examples of benefits are given from unparalleled studies at over 1,900 lakes across Europe addressing topics as diverse as climate change, eutrophication, population structure, species diversity, species invasions and temperature effects.  The continued adoption of standardised protocols also has improved fisheries education by streamlining student learning in Fisheries Techniques courses.  Local and regional differences in standardized sampling are now presented as exceptions, and not the rule.  Examples from Introductory and Advanced Fisheries courses will be discussed.