Resources

This paper reviews case studies to compare SPR reference points used to manage Portunus pelagicus and other crab species across the world with a focus on spawning potential ratio. We found that while few crab fisheries do so currently, there appears to be a trend toward using SPR as a stock status indicator. However, there is a paucity of empirical information on how different SPR reference points may affect fishery performance. In the cases examined, SPR reference points are extrapolated from studies of finfish in temperate waters and adjusted using expert judgement (mainly by adjusting target levels downward, allowing higher exploitation rates, to account for the generally high productivity of crabs relative to temperate finfish). We summarize other indicators and reference values in use by other Coral Triangle crab fisheries along with available fishery performance information to serve as a guide for choosing indicators and reference points for the Indonesia BSC fishery and similar crab fisheries.

A how-to guide for collecting and monitoring biological data.

A sample Excel spreadsheet for collecting and keeping track of fisheries monitoring data.

Blank prioritization table templates in Excel to fill in at Step 6. Use the first table to organize your species based on vulnerability (from Step 4) and status (from Step 5), then use the second table to prioritize them for additional assessments and precautionary management.

The Comprehensive Assessment of Risk to Ecosystems (CARE) model is an Excel-based tool designed to systematically analyze the full suite of risks to selected “targets” (valued species and/ or ecosystems) within a spatially explicit site, from all of the potential “threats” that might impact that site. In 2020 the tool was updated to include an explicit climate vulnerability assessment component that allows users in data limited systems to systematically evaluate the expected impact of climate change on their system in a user-selected future time period, as well as their system's vulnerability to that impact. The scoring process was also updated to allow for generation of climate-impacted relative threat risk scores for all threats present in a site in the same future time period. This update made CARE the only tool currently available that facilitates the comprehensive, semi-quantitative evaluation of every threat facing any type of system or species, both now and in a climate-impacted future time period. The CARE model can be used to evaluate risks facing a single site; to compare multiple sites for suitability/necessity of different management options; or evaluate the effects of a proposed management action aimed at reducing one or more risks. Results of the CARE model can be used to identify which threats are the most important in a given site, and for a given target, both now and in a climate-impacted future. This information can help inform where limited management resources should be directed.

The Catch Share Design Manual is the most comprehensive overview of catch share design, drawing on hundreds of fisheries in more than 30 countries and the expertise of more than 60 fishery experts from around the world. Through a series of questions, it provides a step-by-step roadmap for designing a customized catch share program to meet your fishery’s goals.

The “Climate Impact Profile Template” is a document designed to direct users to a set of key resources, including literature and published databases of species’ climate vulnerabilities and observed and expected shift patterns, from which they can extract the available information on likely climate change impacts in their systems. The Template provides a format for capturing this information in a way that will be likely to be valuable to fisheries science and management decision-making.

Excel-based tool version of the Climate Vulnerability Analysis (CVA) process, as applied by Hare et al. (2016), with amendments to facilitate participatory application in data limited settings.

We present a new ecosystem risk assessment model, the Comprehensive Assessment of Risk to Ecosystems (CARE), which allows analysts to consider the cumulative impact of multiple threats, interactions among threats that may result in synergistic or antagonistic impacts, and the impacts of a suite of threats on whole-ecosystem productivity and functioning, as well as on ecosystem services. CARE can be completed very rapidly, and uses local and expert knowledge where data are lacking. It can be applied to virtually any system, and can be modified as knowledge is gained or to better match different site characteristics.

Catch and effort time series are widely used to understand change in abundance and for this reason it is important that fisheries scientists and managers have a good understanding of the relationship between catch rates and indices of fish abundance and the factors that influence this relationship (e.g., seasonality, changes in gear type). This paper helps to illustrate the basis for this relationship and reviews some of the facets of statistical approaches used to standardize or account for factors that influence this relationship, including where they work well or tend to break down.