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Managers, stakeholders, and scientists recognize the need for collaborative, transparent, integrated approaches to complex resource management issues, and frameworks to address these complex issues are developing. Through the course of 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council developed a conceptual model of ecosystem linkages and risks for summer flounder, a species of recreational and commercial fisheries importance. The proximal aim of the model was to develop a list of integrated management questions that could be refined and addressed through a future quantitative management strategy evaluation. As such, this conceptual model served as a scoping tool. However, the true value of the conceptual model lays elsewhere: familiarizing resource managers historically focused on single-species management with the potential utility of an ecosystem approach to management. This paper details the goals and development of the conceptual model and situates this process in the broader context of best practices for collaborative open science and scientific reproducibility. Further, it highlights a successful path by which the shift towards ecosystem-based management can be actuated.

Rights-based management of fshery resources theoretically allows frms to minimize the cost of extraction without the threat that other harvesters will take their allocations, but added fexibility also allows frms to exploit revenue margins such that frms balance potential revenue gains with potential cost savings. Using two approaches, diference-in-diferences with an index of seafood prices and synthetic control, we test for revenue gains in 39 U.S. fsheries that adopted market-based regulations and fnd mixed evidence of price increases. Species with price increases tend to have viable fresh markets or other features that discourage gluts, whereas species with price decreases plausibly have more to gain on the cost side or are part of a multispecies complex with a higher-value species experiencing a price increase.

An at-sea monitoring (ASM) program has been a required supplement to the Northeast Fisheries Observer Program, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), for monitoring catch in the groundfish fishery in the northeastern United States since the inception of comprehensive sectorbased management in May 2010. For the initial years of this management program, the NMFS contracted with ASM providers and covered all costs for ASM-related services. Since March 2016, vessel owners who target groundfish collectively as groups called sectors have been required to cover the cost of the at-sea component of the ASM program through annual contracts with providers. Although subsequent developments have resulted in the NMFS reimbursing sectors for the majority of billed costs, the salient shift has been from government to private negotiation of ASM contracts. We investigated whether private contracting has reduced ASM costs by applying the terms of contracts to trip-level data from the groundfish fishery over the fishing years of 2013-2018. The payment regime of these contracts was compared with average costs per sea day from NMFS-negotiated contracts. We found that private contracts resulted in average cost reductions of 14% for the at-sea component of the ASM program. Cost reductions may, however, result in other complications, such as reduced observer pay and consequent issues of retention or data quality.

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