Co-Sponsored by ISC

Co-Convenors: Anne Hollowed (USA), Skip McKinnell (PICES), Hiroshi Okamura (Japan) and Cisco Werner (ISC)

Invited Speakers:
Louis Botsford (University of California at Davis, USA)
Jon Brodziak (NOAA/PIFSC, USA)

During the first half of the 20th century, one of the fundamental issues in the then nascent discipline of fisheries science was determining how many individuals could be removed from a fish population without affecting its ability to keep producing fish for a fishery. In the 1950s, theoretical solutions to this problem were discovered in mathematical formulations that emerged from the work of Ricker, Beverton, Holt and others. These closed-form solutions led to widespread adoption as electronic computing technology became widely available in fisheries labs in the 1960s. Concepts that emerged from their equations underpin current estimation of biological reference points used to set harvest strategies for many of the world’s fisheries. Spawner-recruitment (S-R) curves serve as the foundation for what of a fish population remains to be conserved. With so much at stake, it is surprising that their application in contemporary fisheries is taken for granted. This session will delve into the good, the bad, and the ugly consequences of using recruitment curves, with an idea of determining whether an intellectual course correction is needed for the next 50 years. This topic session seeks papers that introduce new approaches to modeling the relationship between spawners and recruitment including: (1) incorporating predator prey interactions in S-R models, (2) use of coupled bio-physical models in identifying mechanisms linking spawners and recruitment, (3) consideration of the role of cohort resonance, (4) techniques for incorporating environmental variability into S-R functions, (5) stage-based S-R approaches, (6) comparative studies testing the performance of different methods relative to observations, and (7) decision rules regarding how to utilize knowledge of S-R relationships in formulating harvest advice. Enthusiasm for this topic session will be used to seek publication in a Special Issue in a primary journal.