Collaborative Fisheries Research Research Articles

Participation in collaborative fisheries research improves the perceptions of recreational anglers towards marine protected areas

Collaborative fisheries research programs engage stakeholders in data collection efforts, often with the benefit of increasing transparency about the status and management of natural resources. These programs are particularly important in marine systems, where management of recreational and commercial fisheries have historically been contentious. One such program is the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP), which was designed in 2006 to engage recreational anglers in the scientific process and evaluate the efficacy of California’s network of marine protected areas. CCFRP began on the Central Coast of California and expanded statewide in 2017 to include six partner institutions in three regions: Northern, Central, and Southern California. To date, over 2,000 volunteer anglers have participated in the program, with many anglers volunteering for multiple years. However, the impacts of outreach, education, and collaborative research on those anglers at the statewide scale are currently unknown. Thus, the objective of the current study was to survey the statewide pool of volunteer anglers to assess the degree to which participation in CCFRP has influenced angler perceptions of MPAs, fisheries management, and conservation. We received 259 completed surveys out of a pool of 1,386 active anglers, equating to an 18.7% response rate. Participation in CCFRP resulted in a significant, positive impact on anglers’ attitudes towards MPAs in California across all regions. Anglers who participated in six or more CCFRP fishing trips had a more positive perception of MPAs than those who participated in fewer trips. Volunteer anglers across all regions perceived that they caught larger fishes, a higher abundance of fishes, and a greater diversity of species inside MPAs, consistent with the ecological findings of the program. These results highlight the benefits of involving community members in collaborative scientific research. Collaboration between researchers and the broader community increases transparency and trust between stakeholders, and results in greater understanding of natural resource dynamics, ultimately producing better management outcomes.

Collaborative fisheries research reveals reserve size and age determine efficacy across a network of marine protected areas

AbstractA variety of criteria may influence the efficacy of networks of marine protected areas (MPA) designed to enhance biodiversity conservation and provide fisheries benefits. Meta‐analyses have evaluated the influence of MPA attributes on abundance, biomass, and size structure of harvested species, reporting that MPA size, age, depth, and connectivity influence the strength of MPA responses. However, few empirical MPA evaluation studies have used consistent sampling methodology across multiple MPAs and years. Our collaborative fisheries research program systematically sampled 12 no‐take or highly protective limited‐take MPAs and paired fished reference areas across a network spanning 1100 km of coastline to evaluate the factors driving MPA efficacy across a large geographic region. We found that increased size and age consistently contributed to increased fish catch, biomass, and positive species responses inside MPAs, while accounting for factors such as latitude, primary productivity, and distance to the nearest MPA. Our study provides a model framework to collaboratively engage diverse stakeholders in fisheries research and provide high‐quality data to assess the success of conservation strategies.

Increasing spillover enhances southern California spiny lobster catch along marine reserve borders

AbstractThe conservation benefits of marine reserves are well established but their contribution to adjacent fisheries via spillover is less certain and context‐dependent. Theoretical predictions do not always match empirical evidence from individual reserves, so carefully designed studies are essential for accurately assessing spillover and its contribution to fisheries. Biomass buildup within reserves, and spillover from reserve borders, also usually takes time to develop. In 2003, a network of no‐take marine reserves was established in the Northern Channel Islands (NCI) of southern California (CA) to conserve biodiversity and to eventually enhance local fisheries through spillover of larvae, juveniles, and adults. The reserve network impacted the local CA spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus) fishery by removing about 20% of fishing grounds in the NCI. In 2008, a collaborative fisheries research effort detected substantial lobster population increases within reserves, and an indication of the possible spillover of adult lobsters across reserve borders. To estimate whether and how much populations within reserves, and spillover from reserves, have increased through time, we repeated the sampling program 10 years later in 2018 at two of the three original reserves. Scientific trapping was conducted prior to the fishing season along a spatial gradient beginning deep within the reserves to reference sites located outside (≥2 km) of reserve borders. Results showed that legal‐sized lobster abundance in traps (catch per unit effort) increased by 125%–465% deep inside reserves, and by 223%–331% at sites near to reserve borders, and by nearly 400% just outside of reserve borders over the 10‐year period, thus indicating a substantial increase in spillover across reserve borders. A similar pattern was observed in lobster biomass caught in traps at the two reserves. This study demonstrates how spillover scales with biomass buildup and that collaborative fisheries research can be used to assess the efficacy of marine reserves as fishery management tools worldwide.

External fishing effort regulates positive effects of no-take marine protected areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established across the globe to mitigate the effects of multiple stressors on marine communities. In many locations, MPAs have generated positive effects on fish communities, but the impacts of fishing pressure—the primary stressor MPAs seek to manage—have not been well investigated. We examined changes in fish biomass inside and outside of no-take MPAs over 14 years in central California, USA. Using data from the community-based science program, the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program, we tested which environmental and human-induced stressors most influence the strength of MPA responses. While temperature and productivity were included in the best fit model, we found that fine-scale fishing effort data, following reserve implementation, best explained the spatial variation in fish community responses to MPAs. Specifically, differences in fish biomass between MPAs and sites open to fishing were larger for reserves near heavily fished locations and these areas exhibited the highest rate of change in fish biomass, indicating strong positive effects of the MPA on the most heavily exploited fish communities. As MPAs continue to be used as a prominent conservation strategy in coastal systems, managers should consider both the suite of human-induced (socio-ecological interactions) and environmental conditions that may alter MPA success as well as establish long-term monitoring programs to fully assess the functionality of marine reserves into the future.

Long-term participation in collaborative fisheries research improves angler opinions on marine protected areas.

Recent marine spatial planning efforts, including the management and monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs), increasingly focus on the importance of stakeholder engagement. For nearly 15 years, the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP) has partnered volunteer anglers with researchers, the fishing industry, and resource managers to monitor groundfishes in California’s network of MPAs. While the program has succeeded in generating sustained biological observations, we know little about volunteer angler demography or the impact of participation on their perceptions and opinions on fisheries data or MPAs. In this study we surveyed CCFRP volunteers to learn about (a) volunteer angler demographics and attitudes toward groundfish management and stock health, (b) volunteer angler motivations for joining and staying in the program, and (c) whether participation in the program influenced volunteer angler opinions on the quality of fisheries data used in resource management and the establishment of MPAs in California. CCFRP volunteers were older and had higher fishing avidity than average within the California recreational angling community. Many self-identified as more conservation-minded than their peers in the recreational fishing community and had positive views of California groundfish management and stock health. Participation in science and giving back to fisheries resources were major motivating factors in their decision to become and remain CCFRP volunteers. Angler opinions toward MPAs were more positive after volunteering with CCFRP. Those who had volunteered for seven or more years with CCFRP were more likely than not to gain a positive opinion of MPAs. Our survey results provide evidence that long-term engagement of stakeholders in collaborative research positively influences stakeholder opinions regarding marine resource management, and highlights CCFRP’s success in engaging citizen science stakeholders in collaborative fisheries research.

Collaborative fisheries research: the Canadian Fisheries Research Network experience

The Canadian Fisheries Research Network (CFRN) was a collaboration among fish harvesters, academic researchers, and government scientists that undertook research between 2010 and 2016 on questions about fisheries that were identified by fish harvesters and pertinent to management objectives. This paper provides a synthesis of the scope and results of the CFRN. It explores the link between the increasing challenges to fisheries sustainability and the need for increased research capacity and for a collaborative approach. It documents the creation of the collaboration, the research it accomplished, and its benefits and explores the need for ongoing collaboration. The papers in this special issue on the CFRN demonstrate the benefits of collaborative fisheries research that are of relevance internationally and support the need for a permanent collaborative platform to conduct research to support fisheries management capacity and decision-making in Canada.

Artificial dens as a management tool for Octopus vulgaris: evidence from a Collaborative Fisheries Research project (central western Mediterranean Sea)

The aim of the present study was to evaluate, through a Collaborative Fisheries Research (CFR) project, the efficacy of artificial dens as a possible integrative action for the management of O. vulgaris in the wild. Artificial dens, anchored on rocky substrates at a depth of 38–42 m in a temporary Fully Protected Area (FPA) off the western coast of Sardinia (central western Mediterranean Sea), showed their effectiveness as a temporary and/or safe site for Octopus vulgaris spawning. The suitability of these artificial dens was demonstrated by the presence of egg strings and females in parental care, and by the fact that all of the brooding-phases until the hatching had taken place inside. The presence of abundant cobbles, appeared to be a key factor in the building of a solid barrier for protection at the entrance of the spawning artificial dens, similar to those seen in natural dens. In addition, our results demonstrate the potential coexistence of artificial dens with natural ones, suggesting their potential use as integrative tool for the management of O. vulgaris. Close collaboration with fishermen in the framework of a CFR project within FPA may increase the success of this management action, through the enforcement of the area. Brooding details and laid egg features revealed by the monitoring are reported and discussed.

Small-Scale Spatial Variation in Population Dynamics and Fishermen Response in a Coastal Marine Fishery

A major challenge for small-scale fisheries management is high spatial variability in the demography and life history characteristics of target species. Implementation of local management actions that can reduce overfishing and maximize yields requires quantifying ecological heterogeneity at small spatial scales and is therefore limited by available resources and data. Collaborative fisheries research (CFR) is an effective means to collect essential fishery information at local scales, and to develop the social, technical, and logistical framework for fisheries management innovation. We used a CFR approach with fishing partners to collect and analyze geographically precise demographic information for grass rockfish (Sebastes rastrelliger), a sedentary, nearshore species harvested in the live fish fishery on the West Coast of the USA. Data were used to estimate geographically distinct growth rates, ages, mortality, and length frequency distributions in two environmental subregions of the Santa Barbara Channel, CA, USA. Results indicated the existence of two subpopulations; one located in the relatively cold, high productivity western Channel, and another in the relatively warm, low productivity eastern Channel. We parameterized yield per recruit models, the results of which suggested nearly twice as much yield per recruit in the high productivity subregion relative to the low productivity subregion. The spatial distribution of fishing in the two environmental subregions demonstrated a similar pattern to the yield per recruit outputs with greater landings, effort, and catch per unit effort in the high productivity subregion relative to the low productivity subregion. Understanding how spatial variability in stock dynamics translates to variability in fishery yield and distribution of effort is important to developing management plans that maximize fishing opportunities and conservation benefits at local scales.

Collaborative assessment of California spiny lobster population and fishery responses to a marine reserve network

Assessments of the conservation and fisheries effects of marine reserves typically focus on single reserves where sampling occurs over narrow spatiotemporal scales. A strategy for broadening the collection and interpretation of data is collaborative fisheries research (CFR). Here we report results of a CFR program formed in part to test whether reserves at the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, USA, influenced lobster size and trap yield, and whether abundance changes in reserves led to spillover that influenced trap yield and effort distribution near reserve borders. Industry training of scientists allowed us to sample reserves with fishery relevant metrics that we compared with pre-reserve fishing records, a concurrent port sampling program, fishery effort patterns, the local ecological knowledge (LEK) of fishermen, and fishery-independent visual surveys of lobster abundance. After six years of reserve protection, there was a four- to eightfold increase in trap yield, a 5-10% increase in the mean size (carapace length) of legal sized lobsters, and larger size structure of lobsters trapped inside vs. outside of three replicate reserves. Patterns in trap data were corroborated by visual scuba surveys that indicated a four- to sixfold increase in lobster density inside reserves. Population increases within reserves did not lead to increased trap yields or effort concentrations (fishing the line) immediately outside reserve borders. The absence of these catch and effort trends, which are indicative of spillover, may be due to moderate total mortality (Z = 0.59 for legal sized lobsters outside reserves), which was estimated from analysis of growth and length frequency data collected as part of our CFR program. Spillover at the Channel Islands reserves may be occurring but at levels that are insufficient to influence the fishery dynamics that we measured. Future increases in fishing effort (outside reserves) and lobster biomass (inside reserves) are likely and may lead to increased spillover, and CFR provides an ideal platform for continued assessment of fishery-reserve interactions.

Utilizing Fishermen Knowledge and Expertise: Keys to Success for Collaborative Fisheries Research

AbstractCollaborative fisheries research provides a mechanism for integrating the unique knowledge, experience, and skills of fishermen and scientists. It is a joint intellectual endeavor that begins with the inception of a project and continues until its final stages, with each group having mutual investment in—and ownership of—the project. Collaborative fisheries research promotes communication and trust among fishermen, scientists, and managers and can provide much‐needed scientifically valid data for fisheries management. It can enhance federal and state management data collection programs, which span broad sections of coastline, by increasing the ability to detect changes in local metapopulations that may be overfished or underutilized. We describe a methodology for conducting collaborative fisheries surveys and apply it to marine protected areas along the central California coast. During a series of workshops in 2006, attended by members of the fishing, academic, environmental, and management communities, protocols were established for conducting hook‐and‐line surveys collaboratively with commercial passenger fishing vessel captains and volunteer recreational anglers. The protocols have been implemented annually since 2007. This case study highlights the effectiveness of—and the essential steps in—developing our collaborative fisheries research and monitoring projects.

Assessing Stakeholder Perspectives on the Impacts of a Decade of Collaborative Fisheries Research in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank

AbstractAnalysis of the perceptions of commercial fishermen, marine scientists, and other stakeholders of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank ecosystem regarding collaborative fisheries research revealed that the benefits of collaboration have been extensive and that a loss of further research opportunities would be consequential. To date, more than 1,000 individuals have participated in research initiatives dedicated to promoting collaboration between scientists and fishermen. A series of eight public meetings were held in the summer of 2008 to determine from fishermen, scientists, and others how this collaboration has affected them, their communities, and the management of important marine resources. Of the 142 attendees, participation was greatest among fishermen (28%) and scientists (24%). The impact of collaborative fisheries research most frequently cited was an increase in the regional capacity to conduct research, utilizing the knowledge and expertise of fishermen and industry vessels as research platforms. Improvements in communication, relationships, and trust between science, industry, and other stakeholders were also lauded. In addition to the social impacts, the economic benefits included enhanced gear efficiency, new fishery opportunities, and help in sustaining fishing operations in times of more restrictive fisheries management. The most frequently cited potential impact of a loss in future funding were probable limits to the capacity of science and management to address local, emerging, or regulatory priorities. Less funding would result in fewer opportunities for stakeholders to work together, build trust, and network. We conclude that because the demands for stakeholder engagement and scientific information will only increase with the global shift toward ecosystem‐based management, programs specifically designed to foster collaboration will play a critical role.

Are We Missing the Boat? Collaborative Solutions for North American Fish Wars

Are We Missing the Boat? Collaborative Solutions for North American Fish Wars

Collaborative Research: An Effective Way to Collect Data for Stock Assessments and Evaluate Marine Protected Areas in California

AbstractCollaborative fisheries research (in contrast to cooperative research) is based on the intellectual partnership between scientists and fishermen and is an effective way to collect data for stock assessments and to evaluate marine protected areas. Collaborative fisheries research is discussed in the context of co‐management of marine resources and how it contributes to a more democratic form of fisheries management. Many benefits result from working together, including (1) the incorporation of fishers' knowledge and expertise into the management process and (2) the development of shared perspectives derived through science‐based investigations on the status of marine resources. The California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program was formed in 2006 to participate in the monitoring of marine reserves established through California's Marine Life Protection Act. This program has shown that it can serve as a model for other areas that are trying to implement collaborative research and that collaborative research can greatly contribute to the realization of community‐based co‐management of marine resources.

Evaluating the Human—as well as the Biological—Objectives of Cooperative Fisheries Research

Abstract Research partnerships that connect and engage fishermen and scientists to address information needs for fishery management have gained attention and currency. Labeled variously as cooperative or collaborative fisheries research, these efforts can be a cost-effective means for collecting scientific data and fishermen's knowledge, and for fostering understanding and trust among participants. Whereas the scientific outcomes of cooperative fisheries research are routinely evaluated, their “human dimensions” are not. Yet both are needed to inform project design and evaluate effectiveness. We evaluated the human dimensions of a cooperative fisheries research project in Oregon and California, using a survey to elicit participants' motivations, expectations and experiences, and their attitudes about participating in future projects. Although participants were positive about their experience, the need for better communication and fishermen's desire for more substantive input throughout the project were no...