Session descriptions —
2024 Wakefield Fisheries Symposium
Fish and shellfish species shifting distributions
Chair: Bob Foy
Session description: As high latitude ecosystems respond to gradual and extreme shifts in environmental conditions, fish stocks also shift to accommodate physiological thresholds, prey availability, and in response to changes in other marine species. However, the environmental shifts are not linear or temporally consistent. The subsequent effects on fish stock movement or effects on stock production are not consistent. This session will highlight the current state of shifting stock distributions, resultant ecosystem changes, and the potential for predicting future shifts.
Fisheries “sustainability” and adapting management structures in a changing climate
Chair: Chris Siddon and Diana Stram
Session description: Fisheries are defined by regional boundaries unlike populations but climate change and shifting boundaries are impacting fisheries as well as fish stocks and management measures that may have previously been static are in need of adaptation. Some questions to cover in this session include: How is a changing climate impacting the way fisheries themselves are managed? Should management move towards ecosystem level goals that may conflict with managing to MSY of all stocks and how best to accomplish this? This session will discuss how management of fish and shellfish stocks need to adapt and be modified to shifting baselines, and stock and policy-level benchmarks. This may include modified management structures, changes to fishery management plans and modified harvest control rules that are more adaptive to a shifting climate.
Human dimensions
Chair: Davin Holen
Session description: Coastal communities in the North have economies dependent on a seasonal round of harvest that depends on specific resources for the subsistence way of life. These systems are not static and are adaptable to changing conditions. However, variability in ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and other factors, as well as warming stream temperatures, are having profound ecosystem changes that are faster than communities and management regimes can cope with to ensure adequate food security. As resources shift and decline in some regions while moving into other regions, there is a disruption in fisheries for food security and local economies, as well as for the continuity of culture. This session will explore shifting resources and how communities cope. The session will also focus on collaborative research between communities and academic and agency researchers to ensure that research questions meet the needs of coastal communities. Finally, the session will explore how this collaborative research can build resilience and adaptability of the management regime and governance at multiple scales.
Modeling shifting distributions
Chair: Jim Thorson
Session description: The spatial distribution for populations is continually shifting on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Similarly, researchers use a variety of data types and analytical techniques to study distribution shifts. This session invites case-studies that illustrate analytic approaches used by researchers worldwide, ideally including correlative species distribution models and mechanistic models, fitted to both point-count and tagging data. We anticipate talks from multiple regions, including efforts to integrate multiple surveys and across jurisdictions.
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