Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Post

🍀Serendipity: good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries. Publication comparing effects of storm vs bottom trawling... 🌊In 2017, a team of scientists NIOZ Estuarine and Delta Systems department faced an unexpected summer storm during their North Sea research expedition, onboard the #RVPelagia, but forged ahead with their field experiments anyway. 😲 Teaming up with the skipper of a commercial fishing vessel, they were able to finish bottom trawl experiments and deploy all equipment needed to collect information the fishing effect before the storm intensified. Retrieval of equipment had to wait until the storm subsided but when the data was finally retrieved, the researchers were astonished. ✍ "Despite minor storm-induced damage, the devices had captured not only the effects of trawling but also intriguing insights into the impact of the storm itself! These serendipitous findings eventually resulted in a publication in Scientific Reports describing biogeochemical dynamics during the marine storm and comparing it to that of recent trawling", say Justin Tiano, first author of the publication and now fisheries scientist Wageningen Marine Research Come check out the newly published findings here 👇 https://lnkd.in/ej-MkNWY You can find the original blog about the expedition on the NIOZ website 👀 https://lnkd.in/edqzk49c

A short piece on some of my PhD research!

Big Fish Eat Little Fish: always a lesson with myriad meanings and explanations. Whether you talk about marine foodwebs or human behavior, one can make the subject as interesting as intriguing for laymen or students. You (as me) can also try to explain how different is to exploit large fish populations than small ones… but some will just “understand” that all fisheries are a threat. For sure the proverb “big fish eat little fish” applied to humans recalls a sense of injustice which decodes the famous trend of “the wealthy exploiting the impoverished, the powerful pummeling the weak”. It happens, you know. But as suggested in the Erasmus’ Adagia in early XVI century “Serpens ni edat serpentem, draco non fiet” (A serpent, unless it devours a serpent, will not become a dragon). It would be wonderful to see humans evolving. Not always the case. Just some food for thought from my talks at USP - Universidade de São Paulo #fisheries #fisheriesmanagement #coastalcommunities #oceanscience

Conducted under the framework of the EcoScope Project, this workshop delved into the various innovative methods to assess the status and exploitation rates of fish stocks in data-poor regions, namely: 📊 Catch and Resilience (CMSY) 📈 Abundance and Resilience (AMSY) 🔬 Length Frequency Distribution Data (LBB) Explore: https://lnkd.in/dY2xuqV7

I'm overjoyed that the first publication with my name on it is based on conservation-focused research, involved collaboration across several borders, and is in a fully open access journal - freely available for anyone to read. The hope is that this research will contribute to the achievement of responsible fisheries management that will prevent further bycatch-related decreases in seabird populations. New in the ICES Journal of Marine Science 😊 - https://lnkd.in/dKCJqHmF

Conducted under the framework of the EcoScope Project, this workshop delved into the various innovative methods to assess the status and exploitation rates of fish stocks in data-poor regions, namely: 📊 Catch and Resilience (CMSY) 📈 Abundance and Resilience (AMSY) 🔬 Length Frequency Distribution Data (LBB) Explore: https://lnkd.in/dt8VAyWF

Memorial University has fantastic cold oceans and northern programs, and even more fantastic students and researchers. In this profile, doctoral candidate (in Fisheries Science, at Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland) Eugenie Jacobsen talks about what brought her to Memorial: "Studying fisheries science in Newfoundland and Labrador was a no brainer! The importance of fisheries to the cultural and socio-economic practices of this province have made Memorial University and the Marine Institute leaders in fisheries innovation." Read the interview to hear more about her research and activities (and to learn more about how to become a grad student at Memorial!): https://lnkd.in/eh3SaK27

Via David Shiffman - Estimating the abundance of benthic invertebrates from trap-catch data - International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) via OUP Academic: Trap fisheries targeting invertebrates are economically important but many of the target species lack stock assessments. One reason for this is the difficulty of estimating density. One important means by which density can be estimated uses the catch rates of baited traps that are spaced at different distances. With declining spacing, the sphere of attraction will increasingly overlap, leading to reductions in catches, allowing for the estimation of the density that is catchable by traps on the seabed. Here we review the analytical methods adopted across a range of studies and find that no consensus on robust methods exists. We propose an analytical method that assumes the trapping area is circular and that the chance of catching an individual declines linearly with distance from the trap. We apply this method to estimate the density and the trapping radius of crabs and gastropods from real and simulated datasets. The method estimated a trapping radius of between 4 and 86 m, and densities that are up to 2.5 times less and 13 times greater than estimates provided in the original sources, illustrating the sensitivity to methodology. In conclusion, we provide and test a standardized method to estimate the density of benthic invertebrates. https://lnkd.in/eHi9j2-u

We work with Cal Poly Humboldt, CDFW, Friends of the Eel, the Wiyot Tribe, Stillwater Sciences, UC Berkeley, and more partners to try to find solutions to support Eel River salmonids by reducing invasive pikeminnow populations. One way: the Trojan Y method. Learn more about this method & others in the video below from Cal Poly Humboldt student Colton Dixon!

A poster entitled, Environmental and fisheries dynamics in the eastern Mediterranean (Aegean Sea), was presented by EcoScope researcher Ioannis Keramidas from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), at the Fish Forum 2024. The poster highlighted the diverse stressors threatening Mediterranean marine ecosystems today. It pointed out that in response to the growing imperative to address these multifaceted challenges, the Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) has emerged as the most suitable strategy. And the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) software offers well-suited capabilities for the pursuit of EBFM objectives. 🌊 🐠 https://lnkd.in/en_aubRp #EcoScope #FishForum2024 #Ecosystem #Fisheries #Management #EBFM #Ecopath #Ecosim #EwE