A population of young blacktip sharks was monitored over three years to determine their mortality rates using a series of acoustic listening stations. Based on these data it was possible to use several mortality estimators, including indirect life -history based methods and direct methods such as the Kaplan-Meier and SURVIV methods, to estimate natural, fishing and total mortality. Kaplan-Meier...

In 1992, the first listings of Columbia River salmon under the Endangered Species Act occurred. Regulation of the Columbia River gillnet fishery since that time has greatly reduced fishing time and economic return to the fishing fleet. The counties where two-thirds of the gillnetters reside have registered negative social statistics during this period, including drug and alcohol abuse rates, in...

Based on life history and ecological characteristics, several authors have placed seamount fishes at the extreme end of the vulnerability spectrum. However, it was still unclear if there is justification for the generalization that seamount fishes overall possess specific life-history characteristics that render them more vulnerable to fishing than other species. In this contribution, we test t...

Commercial fishing utilizes a variety of gears, all of which are selective with respect to at least some phenotypic characteristics of individuals such as body size or girth. Empirical evidence is mounting that such fishing induces rapid evolutionary changes, with consequences for the size structure and dynamics of the exploited stocks. Here we present the results of life-history models designe...

The largest perturbation on upper trophic levels of many marine ecosystems stems from fishing. The reaction of the ecosystem goes beyond the trophic levels directly targeted by the fishery. This reaction has been described either as a change in slope of the overall size spectrum or as a trophic cascade triggered by the removal of top predators. Here we use a novel size- and trait-based model to...