Ecosystem indicators linked to management objectives (DePiper et al., 2017)
Open science emphasis (Bastille et al., 2020)
Used within Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Ecosystem Process (Muffley et al., 2020)
The IEA Loop1
Characterizing ecosystem change for fishery management
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
Andy Beet's arfit
R package integrated into ecodata
Apply to most recent 10 years of each dataset
Apply to full datasets <30 years
Decision based on how strange some of them looked
Has implications for risk assessment scoring
Tests for significant trend, null hypothesis is mean with autocorrelation (no trend)
Performance relative to management objectives
Seafood production ,
Profits ,
Recreational opportunities: Effort
; Effort diversity
Stability: Fishery not stable; Ecological not stable
Social and cultural:
Protected species:
Risks to meeting fishery management objectives
Climate: risks to managing spatially, managing seasonally, and catch specification
Other ocean uses: offshore wind development
Notable 2024 events and conditions
2024 warmest year on record globally. Again.
BUT
We welcome your observations! northeast.ecosystem.highlights@noaa.gov
Indicators: Commercial landings, climate risk
Indicators: Recreational harvest
Multiple potential drivers: ecosystem and stock production, management, market conditions, and environmental change.
The long-term declining trend in landings didn't change.
Indicator: Stock status
Indicators: Total ABC or ACL, and Realized catch relative to management target
Few managed species have binding limits; Management less likely playing a role
Stock status affects catch limits established by the Council, which in turn may affect landings trends. Summed across all MAFMC managed species, total Acceptable Biological Catch or Annual Catch Limits (ABC or ACL) have been relatively stable 2012-2020 (top). With the addition of blueline tilefish management in 2017, an additional ABC and ACL contribute to the total 2017-2020. Discounting blueline tilefish, the recent total ABC or ACL is lower relative to 2012-2013, with much of that decrease due to declining Atlantic mackerel ABC.
Nevertheless, the percentage caught for each stock’s ABC/ACL suggests that these catch limits are not generally constraining as most species are well below the 1/1 ratio (bottom). Therefore, stock status and associated management constraints are unlikely to be driving decreased landings for the majority of species.
Biomass does not appear to drive landings trends
Key: Black = NEFSC survey;
Red = NEAMAP survey
Declining aggregate planktivores, benthos?
Recreational drivers differ: shark fishery management, possibly survey methodology
Monitor:
Because stock status is mostly acceptable, ABCs don't appear to be constraining for many stocks, and aggregate biomass trends appear stable, the decline in commercial landings is most likely driven by market dynamics affecting the landings of surfclams and ocean quahogs, as quotas are not binding for these species.
Climate change also seems to be shifting the distribution of surfclams and ocean quahogs, resulting in areas with overlapping distributions and increased mixed landings. Given the regulations governing mixed landings, this could become problematic in the future and is currently being evaluated by the Council.
Indicator: Commercial Revenue; profit indicators under SSC review
Recent change driven by benthos
Monitor changes in climate and landings drivers:
Indicator: Bennet--price and volume indices
Recent change driven by benthos
Monitor changes in climate and landings drivers:
Indicators: Recreational effort and fleet diversity
Implications
Adding 2023 data, recreational effort (angler trips) retains the long term increase.
The increasing long term trend changed the risk category for the RecValue element back to low-moderate (previously ranked low risk).
New risk element: Decline in recreational fleet diversity suggests a potentially reduced range of opportunities.
Driven by party/charter contraction and a shift toward shore based angling.
Changes in recreational fleet diversity can be considered when managers seek options to maintain recreational opportunities. Shore anglers will have access to different species than vessel-based anglers, and when the same species, typically smaller fish. Many states have developed shore-based regulations where the minimum size is lower than in other areas and sectors to maintain opportunities in the shore angling sector.
Fishery Indicators: Commercial fleet count, fleet diversity
Fishery Indicators: commercial species revenue diversity, recreational species catch diversity
Ecological Indicators: PP and zooplankton
Ecological Indicators: fish richness and traits
While larval and adult fish diversity indices are stable, a few warm-southern larval species are becoming more dominant. Increasing zooplankton diversity is driven by declining dominance of an important species, which warrants continued monitoring.
Indicators: Commercial fishery engagement, social vulnerability, revenue climate vulnerability
Indicators: Commercial fishery revenue climate vulnerability
The Community Climate Change Risk Indicators are calculated by multiplying the percent contribution of species to the total value landed in a community by their respective Total Vulnerability scores (based on NOAA’s Climate Vulnerability Assessment) for different sensitivity and exposure factors and then summing the resulting values by year.
Indicators: Recreational fishery engagement, social vulnerability
Implications: Highlighted communities may be vulnerable to changes in fishing patterns due to regulations and/or climate change.
Indicators: Harbor porpoise and gray seal bycatch
Implications:
Currently meeting objectives, but uncertainty in gray seal estimates
Risk element: TechInteract, evaluated by species and sector: 14 low, 7 low-mod, 2 mod-high risk
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.
Gray seal among the highest bycatch of any U.S. marine mammal. The increasing trend in gray seal bycatch may be related to an increase in the gray seal population (U.S. pup counts).
Indicators: North Atlantic right whale population, calf counts
Implications:
Signs the adult population stabilized 2020-2023
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.
Potential Impacts: Spatial misallocation of quotas within and across jurisdictions, leading to unmet quotas and/or increased discards. Specification of gear management areas may not utilize quotas and minimize bycatch.
Potential Impacts: Spawning closures are less effective if peak spawning occurs outside the seasonal closure. Seasonal openings of exemption areas may be inconsistent with species presence. Seasonal quota allocations may be misaligned with availability.
Potential Impacts: Changes in environmental conditions can affect stock reference points and short-term stock projections. When productivity changes are not accounted for, they can lead to misspecified quotas and rebuilding plans.
Indicators: Fish distribution shifts
Cetacean distribution shifts
Drivers: Forage shifts, pelagic and benthic
New Spatial Shift Indicators: Benthos, Zooplankton
Drivers: changing ocean habitat
Cold pool temperature and spatial extent
Future considerations
Distribution shifts caused by changes in thermal habitat and ocean circulation are likely to continue as long as long-term trends persist. Episodic and short-term events (see 2024 Highlights) may increase variability in the trends, however species distributions are unlikely to reverse to historical ranges in the short term. Increased mechanistic understanding of distribution drivers is needed to better understand future distribution shifts: species with high mobility or short lifespans react differently from immobile or long lived species.
Long-term oceanographic projections forecast a temporary pause in warming over the next decade due to internal variability in circulation and a southward shift of the Gulf Stream. Near-term forecasts are being evaluated to determine how well they are able to predict episodic and anomalous events that are outside of the long-term patterns.
Adapting management to changing stock distributions and dynamic ocean processes will require continued monitoring of populations in space and evaluating management measures against a range of possible future spatial distributions. Processes like the East Coast Climate Scenario Planning, and subsequent formation of the East Coast Climate Coordination Group, can help coordinate management.
Indicators: spawning timing, migration change
Drivers: thermal transition, habitat persistence, bloom timing
Cold pool seasonal persistence
Bloom timing
Future considerations
Management actions that rely on effective alignment of fisheries availability and biological processes should continue to evaluate whether prior assumptions on seasonal timings still hold.
New indicators should be developed to monitor timing shifts for stocks.
Indicators: fish productivity and condition
Drivers: Forage Quality and Abundance
New indicators: benthos abundance
Drivers: Low trophic levels
Drivers: Environmental Potential Ocean Acidification Impacts: Scallops and Longfin squid
Drivers: Predation
Seals increasing, mix of population status for HMS
Future considerations
Indicators: fishery and community specific revenue in lease areas
Council request: New England ports relying on Mid-Atlantic managed species
Implications:
Observations solicited from:
We welcome your observations! northeast.ecosystem.highlights@noaa.gov
Observations included if:
Not exhaustive list; Full impacts remain to be seen
Reprinted from Cape Cod Commercial Fisherman's Alliance February 2025 Newsletter →
Globally, 2024 warmest year on record (above previous record 2023)
BUT, nearly all NE shelf seasonal surface and bottom temperatures back to longer term average
2023-2024 data suggest more Labrador slope water into the GOM (Record et al., 2024)
Linked to well-developed 2024 Mid Atlantic Cold Pool
Extreme observation of ocean acidification risk off NJ
Multiple summer upwelling events off NJ
Unusual timing, location, abundance:
Mostly meeting individual stock objectives.
Ecosystem level management objectives worrying?
Declining seafood production
Historically low revenue
Declining range of recreational opportunities
Most community level revenue has high climate vulnerability
Species distributions, timing, and productivity have changed. Ocean conditions highly variable year to year.
Review objectives: maximum benefit to the Nation in first 3 categories
Is the list complete?
Does the Council have reference points, desired states, or other performance metrics we should address for each objective?
Stability objective: are current indicators addressing Council needs?
Forecasts: what decisions or contexts would ocean forecasts be most useful for?
Bastille, K. et al. (2020). "Improving the IEA Approach Using Principles of Open Data Science". In: Coastal Management 0.0. Publisher: Taylor & Francis _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2021.1846155, pp. 1-18. ISSN: 0892-0753. DOI: 10.1080/08920753.2021.1846155. URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2021.1846155 (visited on Dec. 09, 2020).
DePiper, G. S. et al. (2017). "Operationalizing integrated ecosystem assessments within a multidisciplinary team: lessons learned from a worked example". En. In: ICES Journal of Marine Science 74.8, pp. 2076-2086. ISSN: 1054-3139. DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsx038. URL: https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/74/8/2076/3094701 (visited on Mar. 09, 2018).
Koul, V. et al. (2024). "A Predicted Pause in the Rapid Warming of the Northwest Atlantic Shelf in the Coming Decade". En. In: Geophysical Research Letters 51.17. _eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2024GL110946, p. e2024GL110946. ISSN: 1944-8007. DOI: 10.1029/2024GL110946. URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2024GL110946 (visited on Feb. 11, 2025).
Muffley, B. et al. (2020). "There Is no I in EAFM Adapting Integrated Ecosystem Assessment for Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management". In: Coastal Management 0.0. Publisher: Taylor & Francis _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2021.1846156, pp. 1-17. ISSN: 0892-0753. DOI: 10.1080/08920753.2021.1846156. URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2021.1846156 (visited on Dec. 09, 2020).
Perretti, C. et al. (2017). "Regime shifts in fish recruitment on the Northeast US Continental Shelf". En. In: Marine Ecology Progress Series 574, pp. 1-11. ISSN: 0171-8630, 1616-1599. DOI: 10.3354/meps12183. URL: http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v574/p1-11/ (visited on Feb. 10, 2022).
Record, N. R. et al. (2024). "Early Warning of a Cold Wave in the Gulf of Maine". In: Oceanography 37.3, pp. 6-9. DOI: 10.5670/oceanog.2024.506. URL: https://tos.org/oceanography/article/early-warning-of-a-cold-wave-in-the-gulf-of-maine (visited on Mar. 04, 2025).
Ecosystem indicators linked to management objectives (DePiper et al., 2017)
Open science emphasis (Bastille et al., 2020)
Used within Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's Ecosystem Process (Muffley et al., 2020)
The IEA Loop1
Keyboard shortcuts
↑, ←, Pg Up, k | Go to previous slide |
↓, →, Pg Dn, Space, j | Go to next slide |
Home | Go to first slide |
End | Go to last slide |
Number + Return | Go to specific slide |
b / m / f | Toggle blackout / mirrored / fullscreen mode |
c | Clone slideshow |
p | Toggle presenter mode |
t | Restart the presentation timer |
?, h | Toggle this help |
Esc | Back to slideshow |