Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources is necessary. Integrated ecological-economic fisheries models (IEEFMs) of marine systems are needed to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anticipate ecological, economic and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional. To make these models most effective, it is important to determine how model characteristics and methods of communicating results influence the model implementation, the nature of the advice that can be provided and the impact on decisions taken by managers. This article presents a global review and comparative evaluation of 35 IEEFMs applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes although not all the models reviewed achieve that. Modellers must invest more time to make models user friendly and to participate in management fora where models and model results can be explained and discussed. Such involvement is beneficial to all parties, leading to improvement of models and more effective implementation of advice, but demands substantial resources which must be built into the governance process. It takes time to develop effective processes for using IEEFMs requiring a long-term commitment to integrating multidisciplinary modelling advice into management decision-making. K E Y W O R D Sbio-economic models, comparative model evaluation, fisheries management advice, integrated ecological-economic fisheries models, marine spatial planning and cross-sector management, performance criteria and scales and risks, use and acceptance and implementation and communication and flexibility and complexity | INTRODUCTIONThere is a growing need for tools to evaluate policies and assess tradeoffs in management of marine resources and provision of ecosystem services such as fishing, aquaculture, renewable energy, shipping, conservation and recreation (Cormier, Kannen, Elliott, & Hall, 2015;Degnbol & Wilson, 2008;EU 2014;Langlois, Fréon, Steyer, Delgenés, & Hélias, 2014;White et al., 2012). It is necessary to elaborate and apply common principles and broader, interdisciplinary management evaluation in the use of marine space involving several types of activities and sectors Soma et al., 2013;Stelzenmüller et al., 2013;Sundblad et al., 2014). Policymakers need to know the costs and benefits of conserving ecosystem goods and services to manage them sustainably. Moreover, according to an ecosystembased approach to management, specific pressures, associated uncertainties and risks need to be taken into account (Douvere, 2008;Ehler & Douvere, 2009;Gi...

The Nephrops trawl fishery is one of the most important fisheries in the Bay of Biscay. The fishery management essentially relies on conservation measures, a total allowed catch (TAC) for Nephrops together with a minimum landing size (MLS) and minimum trawl mesh size (70 mm stretched mesh). These measures have failed to prevent high discard levels of many species that characterize the fishery. Nephrops trawlers thus discard about half of their Nephrops catches in numbers (a third in weight) of which only 30% survive. Nephrops discards mainly occur in younger Nephrops age groups below the MLS. This is a waste for the already overexploited Nephrops stock as well as for the fleet. Based on a bio-economic simulation model, the paper analyses the consequences of several scenarios of improving Nephrops selectivity. The potential impacts of these scenarios on Nephrops biomass, landings, discards and economic indicators (e.g. rent) are examined and a cost-benefit analysis of each scenario is carried out. We show that a better exploitation pattern would benefit fisheries that have high level of discards. Reducing non-commercial Nephrops discards leads to positive net present values of rent with better value realized from the production potential and limited short-term losses for the fishing units. By taking account of the economic dynamics of increasing effort however, we show that selectivity measures are insufficient. Regulating access to the fishery is also required to ensure the sustainability of the fishery and a better exploitation of the production potential.

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This study compares the details and performance of fisheries management between