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., 2020)
Used within Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Ecosystem Process (Muffley et al., 2020)
The IEA Loop1
State of the Ecosystem report structure: graphical summary
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 2023:
Performance relative to management objectives - Georges Bank
Seafood production 
, 
Profits , 
Recreational opportunities: Effort , 
; Effort diversity ,
Stability: Fishery 
, Commercial Rec ; 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 Gray seal
State of the Ecosystem Summary 2023:
Performance relative to management objectives - Gulf of Maine
Seafood production 
,
Profits Total , ; NEFMC Managed ,
Recreational opportunities: Effort , ; Effort diversity ,
Stability: Fishery , Commercial Rec ; 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 Gray seal
2023 Performance relative to management objectives
Objective: New England Seafood production
GB 
GOM 
Indicators: Commercial landings
Key: Black = Landings of all species;
Blue = Seafood landings;
Red = NEFMC managed seafood landings
Objective: New England Seafood production
GB GOM
Indicators: Recreational harvest
Multiple potential drivers of landings changes: ecosystem and stock production, management actions, market conditions (including COVID-19 disruptions), and environmental change
New England Landings drivers: Stock status
Indicator: Stock status
Stocks below BMSY increased from 8 to 9, stocks below ½ BMSY decreased from 6 to 4. Spiny dogfish results from RT are unofficial. Management still likely playing large role in seafood declines
New England Landings drivers
Indicator: Survey biomass
Biomass availability still seems unlikely driver
Implications: New England Seafood Production
Drivers:
- decline in commercial landings is most likely driven by the requirement to rebuild individual stocks as well as market dynamics
- other drivers affecting recreational landings: shark fishery management, possibly survey methodology
Monitor:
- climate risks including warming, ocean acidification, and shifting distributions
- ecosystem composition and production changes
- fishing engagement
Objective: New England Commercial Profits 
GB GOM Total , NEFMC-managed
Indicator: Commercial Revenue
Key: Black = Revenue of all species combined;
Red = Revenue of NEFMC managed species
Objective: New England Commercial Profits
GB GOM Total , NEFMC-managed
Indicator: Bennet--price and volume indices
Implications:
Both regions driven by single species
- GOM high revenue despite low volume
- Fluctuations in GB due to rotational management
Monitor changes in climate and landings drivers:
- Sea scallops and lobsters are sensitive to ocean warming and acidification
Objective: New England Recreational opportunities 
Indicators: Recreational effort and fleet diversity
Implications:
- Absence of a long-term trend in recreational effort suggests relative stability in the overall number of recreational opportunities in New England
Objective: New England Fishery Stability Com ; Rec 
Fishery Indicators: Commercial fleet count, fleet diversity
Fishery Indicators: Commercial species revenue diversity, recreational species catch diversity
Objective: New England Ecological Stability
Ecological Indicators: zooplankton and larval fish diversity
Ecological Indicator: expected number of species, NEFSC bottom trawl survey
Implications:
- Commercial fishery diversity driven by small number of species
- Diminished capacity to respond to future fishing opportunities
- Recreational diversity due to species distributions and regulations
- Adult diversity in GOM suggests increase in warm-water species
Objective: New England Environmental Justice and Social Vulnerability
Indicators: Environmental justice vulnerability, commercial fishery engagement and reliance
New England 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: New England Environmental Justice and Social Vulnerability
Indicators: Environmental justice vulnerability, recreational fishery engagement and reliance
New England 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
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
Objectives: Protected species Recover endangered populations
Indicator: Gray seal pups
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 and 1 seal.
2023 Risks to meeting fishery management objectives
Risks: Climate change
Indicators: bottom and surface temperature
Risks: Climate change
Indicators: Extreme temperature events (detrended marine heatwaves)
A combination of long-term ocean warming and extreme events should be used to assess total heat stress on marine organisms.
Risks: Climate change
Indicators: ocean currents
Implications: The Gulf Stream is trending north. This is associated with warmer ocean temperatures on the NE Shelf, higher proportion of Warm Slope Water in the Northeast Channel, and increased sea surface height.
Risks: Climate change and offshore habitat
Indicator: cold pool indices
Indicator: Ocean acidification
Indicator: warm core rings
2022 had the same number of warm core rings as 2021, but fewer near the continental shelf in 2022. Warm core ring near GB likely contributed to the marine heatwave and warm fall SST.
Summer aragonite saturation low for both Atlantic cods and American lobster in the Gulf of Maine.
Risks: Ecosystem productivity
Indicators: chlorophyll, primary production
Risks: Ecosystem structure
Indicators: Phytoplankton, 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
Indicator: fish condition
Georges Bank
Gulf of Maine
Implications: Many species in New England showed improved condition in 2021-2022. 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 productivity
Indicator: fish productivity anomaly
Small fish per large fish biomass anomaly on Georges Bank. The summed anomaly across species is shown by the black line.
Small fish per large fish biomass anomaly in the Gulf of Maine. The summed anomaly across species is shown by the black line.
Survey based fish productivity shows no clear trend in New England.
Risks: Ecosystem productivity
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 structure and habitat
Indicator: Forage index
Indicator: Habitat model-based species richness by EPU
Implications: forage, including species not well sampled by bottom trawls, has been fluctuating over time. Richness calculated for the most common species suggests shifts away from the Mid Atlantic towards Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine.
Risks: Ecosystem structure
Indicator: Common tern productivity
Common tern productivity decline reflecting prey, confounded by cold, wet wether in mid-to-late July when fledging occurs
Risks: Ecosystem structure
Indicators: distribution shifts, diversity (previous sections) predator status and trends here
No trend in aggregate sharks
- No obvious increase in shark populations
- Most highly migratory fish predators are not depleted:
- 10 above B target
- 7 above B limit but below B target
- 2 below B limit
HMS populations mainly at or above target
Risks: Ecosystem structure
Indicators: predators
Gray seals increasing
- 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 ecosystem structure
New Indicator: protected species shifts
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.
Multiple drivers impact species differently
Seasonal estuarine conditions affect life stages of many federally-managed species
Climate change my shrink or fragment available habitat
Extreme temperature events happen intermittently, do not appear to be increasing in frequency, still contribute to overall thermal stress to organisms
Changes to cold pool affect species distribution, recruitment, and migration timing
Risks: Offshore Wind Development
31 offshore wind development projects are proposed
- 2.3 million acres by 2030
- 3,400 foundations
- 9,000 miles of inter-array and offshore export cables
- Additional lease areas in the GOM expected in late 2023
Risks: Offshore Wind Development
Indicators: fishery and community specific revenue in lease areas
Council request: which Mid-Atlantic ports have significant reliance on New England managed species?
