Decision-makers in inland fisheries management must balance ecologically and socially palatable objectives for ecosystem services within financial or physical constraints. Climate change has transformed the potential range of ecosystem services available. The Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework offers a foundation for responding to climate-induced ecosystem modification; however, ecosystem trajectories and current practices must be understood to improve future decisions. Using Wisconsin's diverse inland fisheries as a case study, management strategies for recreational and subsistence fisheries in response to climate change were reviewed within the RAD framework. Current strategies largely focus on resist actions, while future strategies may need to shift toward accept or direct actions. A participatory adaptive management framework and co-production of policies between state and tribal agencies could prioritise lakes for appropriate management action, with the goal of providing a landscape of diverse fishing opportunities. This knowledge co-production represents a process of social learning requiring substantial investments of funding and time.
Large‐scale modelling and prediction provide insight into general influences of climate change on inland recreational fisheries; however, small‐scale dynamics and local expertise will be key in developing explicit goals for managing recreational fisheries as the climate changes. The resist‐accept‐direct (RAD) framework encompasses the entire decision space managers consider when addressing climate influences in their local system, but to decide whether to resist, accept or direct, managers need tools to understand how specific waterbodies will be influenced by climate change. Here, a decision‐support tool was developed and applied to the walleye recreational fishery in Wisconsin, USA as an example of how to link the RAD framework to real‐world management of a large recreational fishery. The tool and broadscale results described here, indicating a widespread shift away from resist strategies by mid‐century, can be used by managers to inform decisions about whether to resist, accept, or direct for specific walleye populations.
The relationship between angler catch rates and fish abundance can contribute to or hinder sustainable exploitation of fisheries depending on whether catch rates are proportional to fish abundance or are hyperstable. We performed a whole-ecosystem experiment in which fish abundance was manipulated and paired with weekly angler catch rate estimates from controlled experimental fishing. Catch rates were hyperstable (β = 0.47) in response to changes in fish abundance. By excluding effort sorting (i.e., catch rates remaining high because less skilled anglers leave the fishery as abundance declines), our experiment isolated the influence of fish aggregation as a driver of hyperstability. Spatial analysis of catch locations did not identify clustering around specific points, suggesting that loose aggregation to preferred habitat at the scale of the entire littoral zone was enough to maintain stable catch rates. In our study, general, non-spawning, habitat preferences created loose aggregations for anglers to target, which was sufficient to generate hyperstability. Habitat preferences are common to nearly all fishes and widely known to anglers, suggesting that many harvest-oriented recreational fisheries can be expected to exhibit hyperstability.
Recreational fisheries are culturally and economically important around the world. Recent research emphasizes that understanding and managing these systems requires a social–ecological perspective. We systematically reviewed quantitative social–ecological models of marine and freshwater recreational fisheries to summarize their conceptualization of social, ecological, and social–ecological dynamics and identify research frontiers. From a candidate set of 626 studies published between 1975 and 2018, 49 met criteria for inclusion in our review. These studies, though diverse in terms of focal species and processes considered, were geographically limited to a few locations and ignored large regions of the globe where recreational fishing is important. There were also important gaps in the social and ecological processes that were included in published models. Reflecting on these patterns in the context of previous conceptual frameworks, we define five key frontiers for future work: 1) exploring the implications of social and behavioural processes like heuristics, social norms, and information sharing for angler decisions and fishery dynamics; 2) modelling governance with more realistic complexity; 3) incorporating ideas from resilience thinking and complex adaptive systems, including slow variables, destabilizing feedbacks, surprises and diversity; 4) considering key ideas in fisheries systems, including spatial and temporal effort dynamics, catch hyperstability, and stocking; and 5) thinking synthetically about the models that we use to describe social–ecological dynamics in recreational fisheries, via explicit comparisons and formal integration with data. Exploration of these frontiers, while remembering the distinction between model complexity and model usefulness, will improve our ability to understand and sustain recreational fisheries.
We observed cannibalism by juvenile and adult largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) on their young-of-year (YOY) over nearly three decades (1984-2012) in a small temperate lake located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. Largemouth bass are consistently the only fish species in the lake, necessitating the importance of studying filial cannibalism as a valuable energy source although it has potential consequences on recruitment and overall population structure. Annual whole-lake population estimates of juvenile and adult bass ranged 91-460 individuals, and these oscillations had significant differences between periods of higher and lower densities. Captured bass >150 mm in total length were individually tagged and had their stomach contents analyzed before being released. Despite significant differences in population estimates, we found no relationship with cannibalism. Additionally, we found no apparent patterns relating cannibalism to day of year, water temperature, or recruitment rates. We also found no differences in cannibalism or the size of consumed YOY between juvenile and adult bass. However, we found that recaptured individuals who consumed YOY bass on two or more occasions had significantly longer total length than individuals who consumed YOY bass one time or not at all, which provides additional evidence of dietary specialization as previously found in this population. Notwithstanding these patterns in cannibalism and the potential energetic benefits that it provides, we could not discern the effects of it on either individual growth rates or consequential changes in recruitment and overall population size. Regardless of the ever-present pressure of filial cannibalism, the population sustained recruitment across the whole study period.
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