Fisheries Surveys Are Essential Ocean Observing Programs in a Time of Global Change: A Synthesis of Oceanographic and Ecological Data From U.S. West Coast Fisheries Surveys

Abstract

As climate change and other anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems accelerate in the 21st century, there is an increasing need for sustained ocean time series. A robust and collaborative network of regional monitoring programs can detect early signs of unanticipated changes, provide a more holistic understanding of ecosystem responses, and prompt faster management actions. Fisheries-related surveys that collect fisheries-independent data (hereafter referred to as “fisheries surveys”) are a key pillar of sustainable fisheries management and are ubiquitous in the United States and other countries. From the perspective of ocean observing, fisheries surveys offer three key strengths: (1) they are sustained due to largely consistent funding support from federal and state public sector fisheries agencies, (2) they collect paired physical, chemical, and biological data, and (3) they have large and frequently overlapping spatial footprints that extend into the offshore region. Despite this, information about fisheries survey data collection can remain poorly known to the broader academic and ocean observing communities. During the 2019 CalCOFI Symposium, marking the 70th anniversary of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI), representatives from 21 ocean monitoring programs on the North American West Coast came together to share the status of their monitoring programs and examine opportunities to leverage efforts to support regional ecosystem management needs. To increase awareness about collected ocean observing data, we catalog these ongoing ocean time series programs and detail the activities of the nine major federal or state fisheries surveys on the U.S. West Coast. We then present three case studies showing how fisheries survey data contribute to the understanding of emergent ecosystem management challenges: marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and contaminant spills. Moving forward, increased cross-survey analyses and cooperation can improve regional capacity to address emerging challenges. Fisheries surveys represent a foundational blueprint for ecosystem monitoring. As the international community moves toward a global strategy for ocean observing needs, fisheries survey programs should be included as data contributors.

An updated end-to-end ecosystem model of the Northern California Current reflecting ecosystem changes due to recent marine heat waves

“…Because the spatial distribution of many marine organisms is patchy (with infrequent catches of very high abundance or biomass), data can be highly skewed and of high variance. Thus, estimating mean biomass values can be more accurate when based on a log-normal distribution [47]. The delta distribution is a probability distribution used to estimate the mean and variance for a dataset that has both zero and non-zero values; in this case, only the non-zero values follow a log-normal distribution [47].…”

“…Thus, estimating mean biomass values can be more accurate when based on a log-normal distribution [47]. The delta distribution is a probability distribution used to estimate the mean and variance for a dataset that has both zero and non-zero values; in this case, only the non-zero values follow a log-normal distribution [47]. To derive fish biomass from bottom trawl surveys, we used the delta distribution to account for infrequent catches of large biomass values (highly skewed and of high variance).…”

State of the California Current Ecosystem in 2021: Winter is coming?

“…To evaluate the physical and biological characteristics of the CCE and surrounding regions, we compile data from various long-running surveys (Gallo et al, 2022). In 2021, data were available from much of the northern and central portions of the CCE.…”

“…Data collected at the local scales are from marine monitoring surveys described in Gallo et al (2022) and the previous State of the California Current Reports (e.g., Weber et al, 2021). We present data that are commonly collected in multiple surveys.…”

“…The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program has systematically monitored the CCE since 1951(McClatchie, 2014. The value of long-term observations, as demonstrated by CalCOFI, has motivated many additional ocean monitoring programs, including various annual surveys spanning large extents of the CCE (often with a stock-assessment motivation) and high-frequency coastal transects, such as the Newport Hydrographic Line and Trinidad Head Line that effectively resolve seasonal transitions (Gallo et al, 2022). The breadth of information about the CCE and other EBUS allows us to generate near-term hypotheses of how physical and biological components are expected to play out within EBUS based on basin-scale oceanographic predictions.…”