Challenges, Opportunities, and Innovation in Crustacean Fisheries Part 1

Crustaceans, especially shrimp, crabs, and lobsters, support valuable fisheries at local, regional, and global scales. These fisheries range from wild and farmed shrimp, the single most valuable global fishery commodity, to tropical and cold-water lobsters, krill in the waters off Antarctica, and freshwater crabs in China and elsewhere. Crustacean fisheries face many of the same challenges as finfish fisheries including overfishing, habitat loss, disease, illegal and unreported fishing, and socioeconomics. Climate change increases uncertainty in our understanding of population dynamics and adds new challenges through thermal stress, range shifts, ocean acidification, and other factors. Crustacean fisheries also present unique challenges for management such as non-continuous growth and limited availability of techniques for aging. Adding to these challenges, most crustacean fisheries are considered “data-poor.” This symposium brings together experts from a wide range of crustacean fisheries to discuss current and emerging challenges, opportunities, and innovation in crustacean fisheries management. We especially encourage presentations on innovative approaches, comparative studies across species or regions, socioeconomic studies, and global perspectives.