How ecological processes shape the outcomes of stock enhancement and harvest regulations in recreational fisheries.

Fish stocking and harvest regulations are frequently used to maintain or enhance freshwater recreational fisheries and contribute to fish conservation. However, their relative effectiveness has rarely been systematically evaluated using quantitative models that account for key size- and density-dependent ecological processes and adaptive responses of anglers. We present an integrated model of freshwater recreational fisheries where the population dynamics of two model species affect the effort dynamics of recreational anglers. With this model, we examined how stocking various fish densities and sizes (fry, fingerlings, and adults) performed relative to minimum-length limits using a variety of biological, social, and economic performance measures, while evaluating trade-offs. Four key findings are highlighted. First, stocking often augmented the exploited fish population, but size- and density-dependent bottlenecks limited the number of fry and fingerlings surviving to a catchable size in self-sustaining populations. The greatest enhancement of the catchable fish population occurred when large fish that escaped early bottlenecks were stocked, but this came at the cost of wild-stock replacement, thereby demonstrating a fundamental trade-off between fisheries benefits and conservation. Second, the relative performance of stocking naturally reproducing populations was largely independent of habitat quality and was generally low. Third, stocking was only economically advisable when natural reproduction was impaired or absent, stocking rates were low, and enough anglers benefitted from stocking to offset the associated costs. Fourth, in self-sustaining fish populations, minimum-length limits generally outperformed stocking when judged against a range of biological, social and economic objectives. By contrast, stocking in culture-based fisheries often generated substantial benefits. Collectively, our study demonstrates that size- and density-dependent processes, and broadly the degree of natural recruitment, drive the biological, social, and economic outcomes of popular management actions in recreational fisheries. To evaluate these outcomes and the resulting trade-offs, integrated fisheries-management models that explicitly consider the feedbacks among ecological and social processes are needed.

Evolutionary impact assessment: accounting for evolutionary consequences of fishing in an ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

Managing fisheries resources to maintain healthy ecosystems is one of the main goals of the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF). While a number of international treaties call for the implementation of EAF, there are still gaps in the underlying methodology. One aspect that has received substantial scientific attention recently is fisheries-induced evolution (FIE). Increasing evidence indicates that intensive fishing has the potential to exert strong directional selection on life-history traits, behaviour, physiology, and morphology of exploited fish. Of particular concern is that reversing evolutionary responses to fishing can be much more difficult than reversing demographic or phenotypically plastic responses. Furthermore, like climate change, multiple agents cause FIE, with effects accumulating over time. Consequently, FIE may alter the utility derived from fish stocks, which in turn can modify the monetary value living aquatic resources provide to society. Quantifying and predicting the evolutionary effects of fishing is therefore important for both ecological and economic reasons. An important reason this is not happening is the lack of an appropriate assessment framework. We therefore describe the evolutionary impact assessment (EvoIA) as a structured approach for assessing the evolutionary consequences of fishing and evaluating the predicted evolutionary outcomes of alternative management options. EvoIA can contribute to EAF by clarifying how evolution may alter stock properties and ecological relations, support the precautionary approach to fisheries management by addressing a previously overlooked source of uncertainty and risk, and thus contribute to sustainable fisheries.

Density-dependent life-history compensation of an iteroparous salmonid.

Over the course of a decade, the bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) population in Lower Kananaskis Lake, Alberta, Canada, recovered from a heavily overexploited state, experiencing a 28-fold increase in adult abundance after the implementation of zero-harvest regulations. This system provided a unique opportunity to monitor the changes in life-history characteristics in a natural population throughout the recovery process. The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which life-history traits were able to compensate for harvest-induced changes and the implications of this for management. Density-dependent changes in growth, survival, and reproductive life-history characteristics were observed. As density increased, maturation was delayed, and the frequency of skipped reproductive events, primarily by individuals of poor condition, increased. However, size at maturation and the proportion of fish skipping reproduction differed between the sexes, suggesting that life-history trade-offs differ between the sexes. The rapid response of these life-history traits to changes in density suggests that these changes were primarily due to phenotypic plasticity, although the importance of natural and artificial selection should not be discounted. The magnitude of the variation in the traits represents the degree to which the population was able to compensate for overharvest, although the overexploited state of the population at the beginning of the study demonstrates it was not able to fully compensate for this mortality. However, no evidence of depensatory processes was found. This, in combination with the plasticity of the life-history traits, has important implications for the resilience of the population to overharvest. Furthermore, density-dependent growth may have the unintended result of making size-based regulations less conservative at low levels of population abundance, as younger fish, perhaps even immature fish, become vulnerable to harvest. Finally, the variation in life-history traits in relation to evolutionary change is discussed. Results from this study demonstrate the importance of considering not only survival, but also changes in life-history characteristics for management and conservation.