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Highlights • Barriers to accessing financial and employment assistance during extended fisheries closures exist, particularly for fishers. • Traditions surrounding shellfish harvest and consumption were disrupted, threatening cultural identities. • Communities accessed social capital that increased their ability to cope with the fisheries closures. Abstract In the spring of 2015, a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) of the toxin-producing diatom Pseudo-nitzschia occurred on the U.S. West Coast, resulting in the largest recorded outbreak of the toxin domoic acid and causing fisheries closures. Closures extended into 2016 and generated an economic shock for coastal fishing communities. This study examines the economic and sociocultural impacts of the Dungeness crab and razor clam fisheries closures on two fishing-dependent communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 36 community members from two communities impacted by the event – Crescent City, California and Long Beach, Washington. Interviewees included those involved in the fishing, hospitality, and retail industries, local government officials, recreational harvesters, and others. Interviews probed aspects of resilience in economic, social, institutional, and physical domains, based on the contention that community resilience will influence the communities' ability to withstand HAB events. Dimensions of vulnerability were also explored, encompassing sensitivity of the communities to HAB events and their adaptive capacity. Common themes that emerged from the interview responses indicate that economic hardships extended beyond fishing-related operations and permeated through other sectors, particularly the hospitality industry. Significant barriers to accessing financial and employment assistance during extended fisheries closures were identified, particularly for fishers. Long-held traditions surrounding crab and shellfish harvest and consumption were disrupted, threatening the cultural identities of the affected communities. Community members expressed a desire for clearer, more thorough, and more rapid dissemination of information regarding the management of fisheries closures and the health risks associated with HAB toxins. The likelihood of intensifying HABs under climate change heightens the need for actions to increase the resilience of fishing communities to the economic and sociocultural impacts caused by HAB-related fisheries closures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Fisheries management is often data-limited, and conducted at spatial scales that are too large to address the needs of Indigenous peoples, whose cultures depend upon the local availability of marine resources. Outcomes: We combined Indigenous ecological knowledge with simulation modelling to inform modern fishery management. Semi-structured interviews with Indigenous fishers in coastal British Columbia, Canada, uncovered severe declines in the abundance and catches of Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) since the 1990s. We modelled the current probability of "successful" crab harvesting trips—as defined by expectations from past catches by Indigenous fishers—using fishery-independent data from nine sites. These probabilities were very low (<20%) for all sites except one. Discussion: Our study highlights that local depletions, which Indigenous fishers attribute to commercial and recreational fisheries, have been widespread and undetected by federal managers who manage Dungeness crab at regional scales without fishery-independent data. Further, local depletions impacted the ability of Indigenous fishers to access traditional foods. Conclusion: Integrating Indigenous knowledge with scientific research is crucial to inform locally-relevant fisheries management and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their habitat specificity, marine parasites present excellent systems for studying the processes and patterns of larval settlement. Settlement of Carcinonermertes errans, an egg predator of the Dungeness crab, is described here for the first time. Upon contact with a host individual , competent larvae of C. errans settled on the crab's exoskeleton and migrated under the abdominal flap within 24 h. When removed from the host, recently settled worms retained their larval characteristics. After 48 h on the host, however, metamorphosis proceeded and larvae became juvenile worms. Additional field studies showed that competent larvae were present in the waters of the Coos Bay Estuary during the months of August through early November, could infect crab hosts directly from the water column, and exhibited density-dependent gregarious settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Derelict fishing gear persists for decades and impacts marine species and underwater habitats. Agencies and organizations are removing significant amounts of derelict gear from marine waters in the United States. Using data collected from repeated survey dives on derelict gillnets in Puget Sound, Washington, we estimated the daily catch rate of a given derelict gillnet, and developed a model to predict expected total mortality caused by a given net based on entanglement data collected upon its removal. We also generated a cost:benefit ratio for derelict gear removal utilizing known true costs compared to known market values of the resources benefiting from derelict gear removal. For one study net, we calculated 4368 crab entangled during the impact lifetime of the net, at a loss of $19,656 of Dungeness crab to the commercial fishery, compared to $1358 in costs to remove a given gillnet, yielding a cost:benefit ratio of 1:14.5. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) fishery, economically robust in California while other fisheries are depressed, is under pressure to develop new management tools. The California Legislature and responsible state agencies have responded to each new crisis in the fishery with revised management regulations that are unwieldy in adapting to changing conditions. Some fishermen are displaced, while others benefit. This then leads to the next set of challenges and reactions. The differing economic needs of processors and fishermen, large and smaller producers, and northern and southern fishermen, plus the agendas of influential nongovernmental organizations, produce advocacies for conflicting management options, hindering progress toward resolution. The Legislature wants guidance from the fishery, but the fishery does not speak with one voice. Alternative dispute resolution can help these diverse but interdependent interests move toward agreement on new management tools. The principles of adaptive management--gathering information, setting goals, predicting outcomes, monitoring and evaluating results toward obtaining such outcomes, then reviewing what worked and what failed--can lead to more economically and socially optimal outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decapod crustaceans are well known for agonistic interactions where they commonly fight over resources. Accurate descriptions of crab behaviour are essential to the development of quantitative behavioural studies involving the Dungeness crab fishery. An underwater video system mounted over a commercial crab trap in situ was used to qualitatively describe several of the most common behaviours utilized by Cancer magister in and around traps, including the documentation of previously undescribed behaviours in this species. Crabs commonly guarded trap doors without entering the trap and prevented other inspecting crabs from entering the trap. Agonistic interactions in traps ceased when crabs 'clustered' together, creating a group of non-interacting, fairly motionless crabs sitting on or near each other. These observations indicate that crab behaviour merits further attention in future studies of gear saturation and the catchability of Dungeness crabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]