Policy defines EBFM as:
A systematic approach to fisheries management in a geographically specified area that contributes to the resilience and sustainability of the ecosystem; recognizes the physical, biological, economic, and social interactions among the affected fishery-related components of the ecosystem, including humans; and seeks to optimize benefits among a diverse set of societal goals.
EBFM Guiding Principles
An integrated ecosystem assessment success story (in progress)
Diverse stakeholders agreed that an ecosystem approach was necessary. Developing and implementing an ecosystem approach to fishery management was done in collaboration between managers, stakeholders, and scientists.
Outline
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council Ecosystem Approach (EAFM)
Tailoring ecosystem reporting for fishery managers
Mid-Atlantic EAFM risk assessment
Next steps: what would you do?
Integrated Ecosystem Assessment
Fishery management in the US
Eight regional Fishery Management Councils establish plans for sustainable management of stocks within their jurisdictions. All are governed by the same law, but tailor management to their regional stakeholder needs.
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC)
Why an ecosystem approach?
"We rebuilt all the stocks, so why is everyone still pissed off?" --Rich Seagraves
in 2011, the Council asked:
And many people answered, from commercial fishery, recreational fishery, environmental organization, and interested public perspectives.
Visioning report:
http://www.mafmc.org/s/MAFMC-stakeholder-input-report-p7b9.pdf
How did MAFMC develop their ecosystem approach?
Visioning Project → Strategic Plan with one objective to develop
"A non-regulatory umbrella document intended to guide Council policy with respect to ecosystem considerations across existing Fishery Management Plans"
Details, including workshop presentations and white papers: http://www.mafmc.org/eafm
Mid-Atlantic Council Ecosystem Approach
2016 Ecosystem Approach to Fishery Management (EAFM) Policy Guidance document: http://www.mafmc.org/s/EAFM-Doc-Revised-2019-02-08.pdf
Mid-Atlantic EAFM framework (Gaichas, et al., 2016):
State of the Ecosystem (SOE) reporting
Improving ecosystem information and synthesis for fishery managers
Ecosystem indicators linked to management objectives (DePiper, et al., 2017)
- Contextual information
- Report evolving since 2016
- Fishery-relevant subset of full Ecosystem Status Reports
Open science emphasis (Bastille, et al., 2021)
Used within Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Ecosystem Process (Muffley, et al., 2021)
- Risk assessment (Gaichas, et al., 2018)
- Conceptual modeling (DePiper, et al., 2021)
- Management strategy evaluation (MSE)
Ecosystem synthesis themes
Characterizing ecosystem change for fishery management
- Societal, biological, physical and chemical factors comprise the multiple system drivers that influence marine ecosystems through a variety of different pathways.
- Changes in the multiple drivers can lead to regime shifts — large, abrupt and persistent changes in the structure and function of an ecosystem.
- Regime shifts and changes in how the multiple system drivers interact can result in ecosystem reorganization as species and humans respond and adapt to the new environment.
State of the Ecosystem report scale and figures
Spatial scale
A glossary of terms (2021 Memo 5), detailed technical methods documentation and indicator data are available online.
Key to figures
Trends assessed only for 30+ years: more information
Orange line = significant increase
Purple line = significant decrease
No color line = not significant or < 30 yearsGrey background = last 10 years
State of the Ecosystem Summary 2022:
Performance relative to management objectives
Seafood production 
, status not evaluated
Profits , status not evaluated
Recreational opportunities: Effort 
; Effort diversity 
Stability: Fishery 
; Ecological 
Social and cultural, trend not evaluated, status of:
- Fishing engagement and reliance by community
- Environmental Justice (EJ) Vulnerability by community
Protected species:
- Maintain bycatch below thresholds
- Recover endangered populations (NARW)
State of the Ecosystem → MAFMC Risk assessent example: Commercial revenue
This element is applied at the ecosystem level. Revenue serves as a proxy for commercial profits.
| Risk Level | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low | No trend and low variability in revenue |
| Low-Moderate | Increasing or high variability in revenue |
| Moderate-High | Significant long term revenue decrease |
| High | Significant recent decrease in revenue |
Ranked moderate-high risk due to the significant long term revenue decrease for Mid-Atlantic managed species (red points in top plot)
Key: Black = Revenue of all species combined;
Red = Revenue of MAFMC managed species
State of the Ecosystem → MAFMC Risk assessent example: Commercial revenue
This element is applied at the ecosystem level. Revenue serves as a proxy for commercial profits.
| Risk Level | Definition |
|---|---|
| Low | No trend and low variability in revenue |
| Low-Moderate | Increasing or high variability in revenue |
| Moderate-High | Significant long term revenue decrease |
| High | Significant recent decrease in revenue |
Ranked moderate-high risk due to the significant long term revenue decrease for Mid-Atlantic managed species (red points in top plot)
Key: Black = Revenue of all species combined;
Red = Revenue of MAFMC managed species
Risk element: CommRev, unchanged
SOE Implications: Recent change driven by benthos. Monitor changes in climate and landings drivers:
- Climate risk element: Surfclams and ocean quahogs are sensitive to ocean warming and acidification.
- pH in surfclam summer habitat is approaching, but not yet at, pH affecting surfclam growth
Performance relative to management objectives
Objective: Seafood production Risk elements: ComFood and RecFood, unchanged
Indicator: Commercial landings
Key: Black = Landings of all species combined;
Red = Landings of MAFMC managed species
Coastwide landings at the Federal fishery management plan (FMP) level were mixed in 2020 when compared to recent years. Landings of monkfish and of combined surfclam and ocean quahog declined in 2020, while landings of combined summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass increased, and landings of combined squid species increased in 2020.*
Indicators: Recreational harvest
*US Seafood Industry and For-Hire Sector Impacts from COVID-19: 2020 in Perspective
Multiple potential drivers of landings changes: ecosystem and stock production, management actions, market conditions (including COVID-19 disruptions), and environmental change.
Landings drivers: Stock status? TAC? Risk elements: Fstatus, Bstatus unchanged
Indicator: Stock status
New Indicators: Total ABC or ACL, and Realized catch relative to management target
Implications: Seafood Production
Biomass does not appear to drive landings trends
Key: Black = NEFSC survey;
Red = NEAMAP survey
Drivers: likely market-driven, but update next year
- Recreational landings differ: shark fishery management, possibly survey methodology
Monitor:
- climate risks including warming, ocean acidification, and shifting distributions
- ecosystem composition and production changes
- fishing engagement
Risks to meeting fishery management objectives
Risks: Climate change
Indicators: ocean currents, bottom and surface temperature, marine heatwaves
Risks: Climate change and estuarine habitat Risk element: EstHabitat 11 low, 4 high risk species
Indicators: Chesapeake Bay temperature and salinity
Indicator: SAV trends in Chesapeake Bay
Indicator: Water quality attainment
Risks: Climate change and offshore habitat Risk element: offshore habitat put aside, new indices
Indicator: cold pool indices
Indicator: Ocean acidification
Indicator: warm core rings
Risks: Ecosystem productivity Risk element: EcoProd, unchanged, new indices
Indicators: chlorophyll, primary production, zooplankton
Implications: increased production by smaller phytoplankton implies less efficient transfer of primary production to higher trophic levels. Monitor implications of increasing gelatinous zooplankton and krill.
Risks: Ecosystem productivity Risk element: EcoProd, unchanged, new indices
Implications: fluctuating environmental conditions and prey for forage species affect both abundance and energy content. Energy content varies by season, and has changed over time most dramatically for Atlantic herring
Risks: Ecosystem productivity Risk element: EcoProd, unchanged, new analyses
Indicator: fish condition
Indicator: fish productivity anomaly
Implications: Most species in the MAB had below average or poor condition again in 2021. Preliminary results of synthetic analyses show that changes in temperature, zooplankton, fishing pressure, and population size influence the condition of different fish species.
Risks: Ecosystem structure add new risk assessment elements?
Indicators: distribution shifts, diversity, predator status and trends
No trend in aggregate sharks
HMS populations mainly at or above target
Gray seals increasing (details in NE report)
- Breeding season ~ 27,000 US gray seals, Canada's population ~ 425,000 (2016)
- Canada's population increasing at ~ 4% per year
- U.S. pupping sites increased from 1 (1988) to 9 (2019)
- Harbor and gray seals are generalist predators that consume more than 30 different prey species: red, white and silver hake, sand lance, yellowtail flounder, four-spotted flounder, Gulf-stream flounder, haddock, herring, redfish, and squids.
Implications: stable predator populations suggest stable predation pressure on managed species, but increasing predator populations may reflect increasing predation pressure.
Implications: Climate change and managed species Risk elements unchanged, new info:
Climate: 6 low, 3 low-mod, 4 mod-high, 1 high risk
Multiple drivers with different impacts by species
- Seasonal estuarine conditions affect life stages of striped bass, blue crabs, summer flounder, black sea bass differently
- Chesapeake summer hypoxia, temperature better than in past years, but worse in fall
- Habitat improving in some areas (tidal fresh SAV, oyster reefs), but eelgrass declining
- Ocean acidification impact on vulnerable surfclams
- Areas of low pH identified in surfclam and scallop habitat
- Lab work identified pH thresholds for surfclam growth
- Warm core rings important to Illex availability. Fishing effort concentrates on the eastern edge of warm core rings, where upwelling and enhanced productivity ocurr
DistShift: 2 low, 9 mod-high, 3 high risk species
Shifting species distributions alter both species interactions, fishery interactions, and expected management outcomes from spatial allocations and bycatch measures based on historical fish and protected species distributions.
Discussion: What may drive observed changes in fish condition and productivity?
Indicator: fish condition
Indicator: fish productivity anomaly
What might managers do about this?
Objective: Commercial Profits Risk element: CommRev, unchanged
Indicator: Commercial Revenue
Key: Black = Revenue of all species combined;
Red = Revenue of MAFMC managed species
Monitor changes in climate and landings drivers:
Climate risk element: Surfclams and ocean quahogs are sensitive to ocean warming and acidification.
pH in surfclam summer habitat is approaching, but not yet at, pH affecting surfclam growth
Objective: Recreational opportunities ; Risk element: RecValue, decreased risk; add diversity?
Indicators: Recreational effort and fleet diversity
Implications
Increased angler trips in 2020 relative to previous years strongly influence the long term increase in recreational effort. Recreational effort (angler trips) has increased over the long term, with 2020 effort above the long-term average.
The increasing long term trend changes the risk categories for the RecValue element to low-moderate (previously ranked high risk).
Decline in recreational fleet diversity suggests a potentially reduced range of opportunities.
Driven by party/charter contraction (from a high of 24% of angler trips to 7% currently), and a shift toward shore based angling.
Objective: Stability Risk elements: FishRes1 and FleetDiv, unchanged, add recreational elements?
Fishery Indicators: Commercial fleet count, fleet diversity
Fishery Indicators: commercial species revenue diversity, recreational species catch diversity
Objective: Stability Risk element: ecological diversity put aside, new indices
Ecological Indicators: zooplankton diversity
Ecological Indicator: expected number of species, NEFSC bottom trawl survey
Implications:
- stable capacity to respond to the current range of commercial fishing opportunities
- recreational catch diversity maintained by a different set of species over time
- monitor zooplankton diversity driven by declining dominant species
Objective: Environmental Justice and Social Vulnerability Risk element: Social, unchanged
Indicators: Environmental justice vulnerability, commercial fishery engagement and reliance
Mid-Atlantic commercial fishing communities
Implications: Highlighted communities may be vulnerable to changes in fishing patterns due to regulations and/or climate change. When also experiencing environmental justice issues, they may have lower ability to successfully respond to change.
Objective: Environmental Justice and Social Vulnerability Risk element: Social, unchanged
Indicators: Environmental justice vulnerability, recreational fishery engagement and reliance
Mid-Atlantic recreational fishing communities
Implications: Highlighted communities may be vulnerable to changes in fishing patterns due to regulations and/or climate change. When also experiencing environmental justice issues, they may have lower ability to successfully respond to change.
Objectives: Protected species Maintain bycatch below thresholds
Indicators: Harbor porpoise and gray seal bycatch
Implications:
Currently meeting objectives
Risk element: TechInteract, evaluated by species and sector: 14 low, 6 low-mod, 3 mod-high risk, unchanged
The downward trend in harbor porpoise bycatch can also be due to a decrease in harbor porpoise abundance in US waters, reducing their overlap with fisheries, and a decrease in gillnet effort.
The increasing trend in gray seal bycatch may be related to an increase in the gray seal population (U.S. pup counts).
Objectives: Protected species Recover endangered populations
Indicators: North Atlantic right whale population, calf counts
Implications:
Population drivers for North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) include combined fishery interactions/ship strikes, distribution shifts, and copepod availability.
Additional potential stressors include offshore wind development, which overlaps with important habitat areas used year-round by right whales, including mother and calf migration corridors and foraging habitat.
Unusual mortality events continue for 3 large whale species.
Risks: Offshore Wind Development Element: OceanUse
Indicators: development timeline, fishery and community specific revenue in lease areas
