Linking dynamic species distributions and fishing fleets

James Smith, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, United States; NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, United States, Desiree Tommasi, University of California Santa Cruz and NOAA SWFSC, La Jolla, CA, United States, Jonathan Sweeney, University of California Santa Cruz and NOAA SWFSC, La Jolla, United States and Michael Jacox, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, CA, United States
Abstract:
Modelling marine systems often requires the linkage of biological and human elements. Representing these links on fine spatial-temporal scales is especially challenging, because it requires information on the dynamic distributions of species as well the movement and decision making processes of fishing vessels.

We investigated two approaches for linking fish and fishing processes: 1) an agent-based ‘utility’ model informed by species distribution models, and 2) an environmentally-informed hidden Markov model of fisher behavior. Approach 1) focuses on the detailed modelling of target species distributions, and links this to fishers through rational search behavior of vessels detecting species with an (largely unknown) level of error. Approach 2) focuses on a detailed modelling of vessel behavior, and links this to target species by the (difficult to compare) correlation between shared environmental cues between fishers and fish.

We discuss the specific challenges of these approaches, and how they might be developed or used together to better simulate, and incorporate uncertainty in, fish-fisher links.

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