Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Aims To provide a framework that integrates empirical analyses of environmental effects on fish populations into population dynamics modeling. This will be accomplished by evaluating environmental effects on fish life history and including those effects in novel, simulation tested stock assessment models in Newfoundland and Labrador. These models will then be used within management strategy evaluation processes to develop ecosystem-based fisheries management advice. The ecological and statistical framework will specifically: �identify key environmental and multispecies processes influencing fish populations �integrate environmental and population dynamics processes in stock assessment models �estimate the effects of environmental processes on stock assessment projections �inform fisheries management advice for individual stocks in the Newfoundland and Labrador region Background Environmental conditions (i.e., climate, oceanographic variables) modify the distribution and productivity of aquatic populations (i.e., population dynamics). In recognition of this significant impact, Canada's Fisheries Act was revised in 2019 to require fisheries management to account for the effects of environmental conditions on fish populations. Despite this mandate, Canadian fisheries management remains heavily reliant on single-species approaches that do not quantitatively consider environmental or multispecies effects within stock assessment models currently underpinning fisheries science advice. Although single-species stock assessment models can be extended to include environmental effects, applications have been limited, and the reliability of population dynamics estimates and projections using these models remains poorly understood. Newfoundland and Labrador provides an example for how changing environmental conditions can dramatically modify fish communities. During the early-1990s, Newfoundland and Labrador fish community biomass collapsed following anomalously cold temperatures and decades of overharvesting. Many populations have yet to recover, 30 years after their collapse, indicating that current fisheries management practices are not adequately addressing the mechanisms underpinning population productivity. Benefits This research program will directly benefit fisheries stakeholders in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Canada more broadly, by developing novel statistical approaches that account for environmental and multispecies factors driving the productivity of socio-economically valuable fisheries. These statistical approaches will be evaluated using simulation testing to determine whether incorporating environmental conditions into fisheries stock assessments improves short-term (1-3 year) model projections, thus benefiting fisheries science and management. In addition, by applying these approaches to individual populations, this research will improve understanding of how ecosystem processes influence population dynamics.