In Memoriam

Abstract

He liked fish. And he liked people who liked fish. In the span of a week, Michael J. Maceina, Professor Emeritus at Auburn University, went from fishing with his family near Mobile Bay to passing peacefully at home in his own bed on June 10, 2020. During his brief battle with prostate cancer he did not stop fishing, he did not stop hunting, and he did not stop spending quality time with family and friends. Maceina earned his fisheries degrees at the University of Florida (BS, MS) and Texas A&M University (PhD). He worked as a senior environmental scientist with the South Florida Water Management District for several years before joining the Auburn University faculty in 1990, where he worked until he retired in 2015. His population dynamics graduate course was legendary. Maceina was an intense and passionate instructor. He never settled for anything less than your best and he expected you to bring your A-game every day. He certainly always brought his. His students benefitted from his energy and drive to solve fishery problems with rigorous data analysis and a critical eye for investigating data trends and patterns. When he wasn’t fishing or hunting with family and friends, Maceina was a dynamic researcher and prolific author, penning 127 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters. His nickname “Iron Mike” may have come from his dealings with reviewers and editors. He also answered to “Dr. N,” a nod towards his advocacy for large sample sizes and resultant statistical power. Mike and his collaborators made seminal contributions in their studies of relationships between trophic states and fisheries, harvest regulations, age and growth of fish, fish habitat requirements, vegetation management, and environmental drivers of fish recruitment. Mike developed the methodology to use residuals from catch-curves to index year class strength and that influential 1997 paper has been widely adopted by freshwater and marine biologists. Yield models have been the bread-and-butter of marine stock assessments for many years, but were less commonly employed in studies of freshwater fisheries before 2000. Maceina and his student coauthor helped change that when they developed Windows-based FAST/FAMS software. Together, they hosted dozens of workshops to teach several generations of freshwater biologists how to use sophisticated yield models to forecast the effects of regulation changes on fish populations. Given his penchant for studying fisheries management problems, it is not surprising that he coauthored the Best Paper of 2016 in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management (10 years earlier, he coauthored a paper that was a finalist for that prestigious award). Mike was inducted into the Fisheries Management Section’s Hall of Excellence in 2017. He was an AFS Life Member and an active participant at state, regional, and AFS Annual Meetings and symposia for 35 years. He was also active in the North American Lake Management Society and the Aquatic Plant Management Society. Maceina always felt a connection to southeastern U.S. ecosystems and the management of aquatic vegetation and nutrients in lakes and reservoirs. Your endeavors were nearly always successful if Maceina was your co-principal investigator or coauthor. If he was your friend, well, you could find no better. If he was your advisor you counted yourself lucky—perhaps not at the exact moment when he was delivering a well-timed “attitude adjustment,” but later you certainly did. Maceina mentored 28 graduate students who fanned out across the USA and the world to continue his work. That achievement is perhaps his greatest legacy as a fisheries scientist. His son Vaughn Trout Maceina, his daughter-in-law Claire, and their two children survive him. His wife Nellie passed away before he did. A memorial endowment in the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences at Auburn University has been established. Contributions can be made out and sent to the AU Foundation in Mike’s name at College of Agriculture Development Office, 100 Comer Hall, Auburn, AL 36849-5401.