Rebuilding depleted fish stocks is an international policy goal and a 2020 Aichi target under the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, stock productivity may shift with future climate change, with unknown consequences for sustainable harvesting, biomass targets and recovery timelines. Here we develop a stochastic modelling framework to characterize variability in the intrinsic productiv...

The gravity of growth overfishing is increasingly recognized. The size-distribution of fish stocks is often severely truncated, even when the overall biomass is reasonably well managed. In a first part of this article, I show how the “race to fish” extends to the dimension of size: Akin to the classical Bertrand competition in prices, each agent has an incentive to target fish at a smaller size...

The North-East Arctic cod (Gadus morhua) fishery, as most other commercial fisheries, is wasting the larger part of its potential. Examining a detailed multi-cohort, multigear bioeconomicmodel, we show that the cause is rather a too smallmesh size than excessive effort. Although internationally and nationallymanaged by quota allocations and regulations, the current exploitation pattern implies ...

Burgess et al.’s report in PNAS, “Range contraction enables harvesting to extinction” (1), provides a highly valuable perspective on the consequences of species range contractions that maintain local densities of declining populations. The authors suggest that this densitydependent contraction maintains local harvesting yields and economic incentives that enable depleted natural populations of ...

This study employs a spatially distributed stochastic extension of the classical “fishwar” harvesting game. The model addresses the bioeconomic impact of exploiting a trans-boundary fish stock in a stochastic marine environment subject to natural fluctuations and long-term regime changes. Our goal is to study the evolution of the fishery, either with cooperative or non-cooperative harvesting, w...

BACKGROUND: Paddlefish and sturgeons (Acipenseriformes) collectively constitute one of the most imperiled groups of fishes in North America. Populations were over-exploited for meat and caviar in the early 20th century (Tower 1908, Stockard 1908, Saffron 2002) and are impacted today by continued harvesting, habitat degradation, and habitat loss (Williamson 2003). Some instances of entrainment h...

“encourage economically efficient forest practices that assure the continuous growing and harvesting of forest tree species and the maintenance of forestland for such purposes as the leading use on privately owned land, consistent with sound management of soil, air, water, fish and wildlife resources and scenic resources within visually sensitive corridors as provided by ORS 527.755 that assure...

The intense harvesting of a fish stock can be accompanied by changes in certain life history traits of that stock. For example, after heavy exploitation, Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the northwestern Atlantic and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) on the Scotian Shelf matured at smaller sizes and younger ages (Olsen et al., 2004, 2005; Neuheimer and Taggart, 2010). Because earlier maturing in...

Scomberomorus cavalla is a pelagic fish species widely distributed on the Atlantic west coast, and a noticeable decrease in its capture level in the USA and Gulf of Mexico is occurring, compared to the levels reached by the species in the past. Likewise, in some areas of Brazil, there has been indication of over-harvesting. However, there are no molecular studies focusing on the management of s...