WORK THEME 3: ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS ON FISHERIES

Welcome to our online course on modelling Ecological Effects on Fisheries

*Please note: This page is currently in development, more training materials and links coming soon.

Environmental changes can have a profound impact on the welfare and productivity of fish stocks. This means that the amount of fish available in a fishery can vary depending on ecological factors, such as water temperature and nutrient availability.

Currently, limited understanding of the effects that ecological changes can have on fisheries makes it difficult to predict their potential long-term impacts. This hinders the ability to identify adaptive and responsive management measures. SEAwise aims to deliver a better understanding of this relationship to improve future management advice.

To achieve this, SEAwise set out to:

• Identify the key environmental factors that control productivity.
• Model and predict the ways in which ecological factors could affect fish productivity.
• Incorporate our understanding of how the environment affects fish productivity, as part of the SEAwise fisheries management advice tool.

Lead partner – Institut Francais De Recherche Pour L’exploitation De La Mer (Ifremer), France

Lead contact – Marie Savina-Rolland, IFREMER

In November 2024, ICES and SEAwise held a joint online course on the Ecological Effects on Fisheries: Integrating environmental impacts on stock productivity in Management Strategy Evaluation models

The course consisted of practical sessions based on the advancement of work on modelling the Ecological Effects On Fisheries, with focus on the SEAwise Case Studies in the: Baltic Sea, North Sea, Western Waters, and central Mediterranean Sea.

The course covered the following topics: 

(1) Environmental data preparation;

(2) Covariate selection;

(3) Model fitting: statistical vs. mechanistic;

(4) Model evaluation & validation;

(5) Projection and;

(6) Communication of assumptions.

using the MSE Models: FLBEIA and BEMTOOL.

Head below to access recordings and materials from the course.

Please be aware that: General knowledge about stock assessment and MSE models, as well as experience with FLR and R are helpful prerequisites of this course.

Supporting materials

Read the Introduction to the ICES-SEAwise course