Toward Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management: Strategies for Multispecies Modeling and Associated Data Requirements

In the last decade, fisheries management has begun to shift toward multispecies modeling that incorporates ecological processes. Four such modeling approaches that may be useful in fisheries management are reviewed: multispecies production models, multispecies virtual population analysis, Ecopath with Ecosim, and multispecies bioenergetics models. All can predict biomass trajectories over time for different fishing scenarios, but they use different levels of spatial, temporal, and biological resolution, have different quantitative/qualitative outputs, and give different insights into ecosystem function. For each model, data requirements are explained and examples of field applications are discussed. Criteria to consider in designing a fisheries field modeling research program are noted, including scale, sampling platform, and data collection issues.