BACKGROUND Climate change is altering climate patterns, mainly increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events with potentially serious impacts on natural resources and the people that use them. Adapting to such impacts will require the integration of scientific and local (folk) knowledge, especially the first-hand experiences and perceptions of resource users such as fishers. In this ...

Fisheries support livelihood of over half a billion of people globally. Many of these people live in coastal regions of developing countries; and have limited capacity to adapt and build resilience in the face of climate change.  This research assesses the biophysical and socioeconomic characteristics of fishers in four coastal communities, Komenda, Elmina, Cape coast and Morree, in Ghana. Stru...

Non-compliance with fishing regulations can undermine management effectiveness. Previous bivariate approaches were unable to untangle the complex mix of factors that may influence fishers' compliance decisions, including enforcement, moral norms, perceived legitimacy of regulations and the behaviour of others. We compared seven multivariate behavioural models of fisher compliance decisions usin...

Dynamite or blast fishing remains the most pervasive destructive fishing method in the coastal waters of Tanzania. It constitutes a major threat to small-scale fisheries through degradation of reefs and other critical habitats for fish. The Tanzanian Government has implemented several measures including a high rate of patrols and surveillance campaigns in the sea to try to deter the use of dyna...

The fisher (Martes pennanti) is a medium-size mammalian carnivore and the largest member of the genus Martes (Anderson 1970) of the family Mustelidae in the order Carnivora. The genus Martes includes five or six other extant species. The fisher has the general body build of a stocky weasel and is long, thin, and set low to the ground. A fisher's head is triangular with a pronounced muzzle, its ...

Citation: Macusi ED, Abreo NAS and Babaran RP (2017) Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) on Fish Behavior Around Anchored FADs: the Case of Tuna Purse Seine and Ringnet Fishers from Southern Philippines. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:188. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00188 Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) on Fish Behavior Around Anchored FADs: the Case of Tuna Purse Seine and Ringnet Fishers from Southern Philipp...

Social and ecological systems come together during the act of fishing. However, we often lack a deep understanding of the fishing process, despite its importance for understanding and managing fisheries. A quantitative, mechanistic understanding of the opportunities fishers encounter, the constraints they face, and how they make decisions within the context of opportunities and constraints will...

The choice to conserve or be greedy in a commons dilemma may be influenced by the behavior of others and by pro-environmental values. Participants completed a measure of pro-environmental values one week before taking part in an Internet-based commons dilemma microworld consisting of a shared fishery with three computer-controlled virtual fishers whom participants believed to be real people. Th...

There is strong evidence that a key determinant of the ecological state of the world’s oceans is the decision-making of fishers and policy-makers. There is a large empirical literature on the complex reality of human decision-making, but a comparative lack of work bringing detailed cognitive facts to models of aggregate behavior of this kind. We show how a psychologically realistic description ...

Incorporating the perspectives and insights of stakeholders is an essential component of ecosystem-based fisheries management, such that policy strategies should account for the diverse interests of various groups of anglers to enhance their efficacy. Here we assessed fishing stakeholders' perceptions on the management of Atlantic striped bass (Morone saxatilis) and receptiveness to potential f...