Perhaps the most fundamental insight from fishery science is that ecosystems impose important and predictable constraints on food production from the sea. The familiar hump-shaped growth curve implies that the growth rate and carrying capacity of a species limit its production: Once stocks are depleted, further increasing fishing pressure will only lead to decreases in catch. This logic underpi...

Catch data from a single year across many cohorts of fish will be identical to longitudinal data of a single cohort if each cohort sampled began with the same number of fish (i.e., recruitment is constant) and if the mortality rate is constant across all ages and years. For example, the catches-at-age of the hypothetical 2002 and 2006 cohorts is shown on diagonals in Table 1 and are equal to th...

Fishes are one of the most commonly introduced aquatic taxa worldwide, and invasive fish species pose threats to biodiversity and ecosystem function in recipient waters. Considerable research efforts have focused on predicting the invasibility of different fish taxa; however, accurate records detailing the establishment and spread of invasive fishes are lacking for large numbers of fish around ...

Fish discards and by-catch issues are highly topical subjects that are permanently under a social focus. Two main approaches are being considered to address this discard problem: reducing the by-catch and increasing by-catch utilization. Interest in increased by-catch valorization may arise from a greater demand for fish products, such as the development of new markets for previously discarded ...

We investigated the spatial and temporal relationship of catch rates and angler party location for two days following a publicly announced put-and-take stocking of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Catch rates declined with time since stocking and distance from stocking. We hypothesized that opportunity for high catch rates would cause anglers to fish near the stocking location and disperse ...

—The use of fisheries-independent trawl survey data to estimate fish abundance in shallow coastal systems can present challenges for producing reliable population estimates. We used hydroacoustic and trawl data to estimate the catch efficiency of a demersal trawl that is presently used in surveys to support stock assessments in Chesapeake Bay, USA. Specifically, we determined the efficiency of ...

Fish aggregating devices, or FADs, are used widely in developing countries to concentrate pelagic fish, making them easier to catch. Nearshore FADs anchored close to the coast allow access for rural communities, but despite their popularity among policy makers, there is a dearth of empirical analysis of their contributions to the supply of fish and to fisheries management. In this paper we demo...