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Climate change is already impacting coastal communities, and ongoing and future shifts in fisheries species productivity from climate change have implications for the livelihoods and cultures of coastal communities. Harvested marine species in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem support U.S. West Coast communities economically, socially, and culturally. Ecological vulnerability assessments exist for individual species in the California Current but ecological and human vulnerability are linked and vulnerability is expected to vary by community. Here, we present automatable, reproducible methods for assessing the vulnerability of U.S. West Coast fishing dependent communities to climate change within a social-ecological vulnerability framework. We first assessed the ecological risk of marine resources, on which fishing communities rely, to 50 years of climate change projections. We then combined this with the adaptive capacity of fishing communities, based on social indicators, to assess the potential ability of communities to cope with future changes. Specific communities (particularly in Washington state) were determined to be at risk to climate change mainly due to economic reliance on at risk marine fisheries species, like salmon, hake, or sea urchins. But, due to higher social adaptive capacity, these communities were often not found to be the most vulnerable overall. Conversely, certain communities that were not the most at risk, ecologically and economically, ranked in the category of highly vulnerable communities due to low adaptive capacity based on social indicators (particularly in Southern California). Certain communities were both ecologically at risk due to catch composition and socially vulnerable (low adaptive capacity) leading to the highest tier of vulnerability. The integration of climatic, ecological, economic, and societal data reveals that factors underlying vulnerability are variable across fishing communities on the U.S West Coast, and suggests the need to develop a variety of well-aligned strategies to adapt to the ecological impacts of climate change., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

A major challenge in sustainability science is identifying targets that maximize ecosystem benefits to humanity while minimizing the risk of crossing critical system thresholds. One critical threshold is the biomass at which populations become so depleted that their population growth rates become negative-depensation. Here, we evaluate how the value of monitoring information increases as a natural resource spends more time near the critical threshold. This benefit emerges because higher monitoring precision promotes higher yield and a greater capacity to recover from overharvest. We show that precautionary buffers that trigger increased monitoring precision as resource levels decline may offer a way to minimize monitoring costs and maximize profits. In a world of finite resources, improving our understanding of the trade-off between precision in estimates of population status and the costs of mismanagement will benefit stakeholders that shoulder the burden of these economic and social costs.

Despite their limited area relative to the global ocean, coastal zones-the regions where land meets the sea-play a disproportionately important role in generating ecosystem services. However, coastal ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human populations. In particular, urban stormwater is an increasingly important threat to the integrity of coastal systems. Urban catchments exhibit altered flow regimes that impact ecosystem processes and coastal foodwebs. In addition, urban stormwater contains complex and unpredictable mixtures of chemicals that result in a multitude of lethal and sublethal impacts on species in coastal systems. Along the western coast of the United States, we estimate that hundreds of billions of kilograms of suspended solids flow off land surfaces and enter the Northern California Current each year. However, 70% of this pollution could be addressed by treating only 1.35% of the land area. Determining how to prioritize treatment of stormwater in this region requires a clear articulation of objectives-spatial distribution of appropriate management actions is dependent on the life histories of species, and management schemes optimized for one species may not achieve desired objectives for other species. In particular, we highlight that the scale of stormwater interventions must match the ecological scale relevant to species targeted by management. In many cases, management and policy will require mechanisms in order to ensure that local actions scale-up to efficiently and effectively achieve management objectives. In the face of rapid urbanization of coastal zones, failure to consider the match of management and ecological scales will result in the continued decline of coastal ecosystems and the species they support. This article is part of the theme issue 'Integrative research perspectives on marine conservation'.

A growing body of empirical evidence is revealing the value of nature experience for mental health. With rapid urbanization and declines in human contact with nature globally, crucial decisions must be made about how to preserve and enhance opportunities for nature experience. Here, we first provide points of consensus across the natural, social, and health sciences on the impacts of nature experience on cognitive functioning, emotional well-being, and other dimensions of mental health. We then show how ecosystem service assessments can be expanded to include mental health, and provide a heuristic, conceptual model for doing so.

Habitat loss, overexploitation, and numerous other stressors have caused global declines in apex predators. This "trophic downgrading" has generated widespread concern because of the fundamental role that apex predators can play in ecosystem functioning, disease regulation, and biodiversity maintenance. In attempts to combat declines, managers have conducted reintroductions, imposed stricter harvest regulations, and implemented protected areas. We suggest that full recovery of viable apex predator populations is currently the exception rather than the rule. We argue that, in addition to well-known considerations, such as continued exploitation and slow life histories, there are several underappreciated factors that complicate predator recoveries. These factors include three challenges. First, a priori identification of the suite of trophic interactions, such as resource limitation and competition that will influence recovery can be difficult. Second, defining and accomplishing predator recovery in the context of a dynamic ecosystem requires an appreciation of the timing of recovery, which can determine the relative density of apex predators and other predators and therefore affect competitive outcomes. Third, successful recovery programs require designing adaptive sequences of management strategies that embrace key environmental and species interactions as they emerge. Consideration of recent research on food web modules, alternative stable states, and community assembly offer important insights for predator recovery efforts and restoration ecology more generally. Foremost among these is the importance of a social-ecological perspective in facilitating a long-lasting predator restoration while avoiding unintended consequences.

Over 1.3 billion people live on tropical coasts, primarily in developing countries. Many depend on adjacent coastal seas for food, and livelihoods. We show how trends in demography and in several local and global anthropogenic stressors are progressively degrading capacity of coastal waters to sustain these people. Far more effective approaches to environmental management are needed if the loss in provision of ecosystem goods and services is to be stemmed. We propose expanded use of marine spatial planning as a framework for more effective, pragmatic management based on ocean zones to accommodate conflicting uses. This would force the holistic, regional-scale reconciliation of food security, livelihoods, and conservation that is needed. Transforming how countries manage coastal resources will require major change in policy and politics, implemented with sufficient flexibility to accommodate societal variations. Achieving this change is a major challenge - one that affects the lives of one fifth of humanity., (Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

In an effort to garner consensus around environmental programs, practitioners have attempted to increase awareness about environmental threats and demonstrate the need for action. Nonetheless, how beliefs about the scope and severity of different types of environmental concerns shape support for management interventions are less clear. Using data from a telephone survey of residents of the Puget Sound region of Washington, we investigate how perceptions of the severity of different coastal environmental problems, along with other social factors, affect attitudes about policy options. We find that self-assessed environmental understanding and views about the seriousness of pollution, habitat loss, and salmon declines are only weakly related. Among survey respondents, women, young people, and those who believe pollution threatens Puget Sound are more likely to support policy measures such as increased enforcement and spending on restoration. Conversely, self-identified Republicans and individuals who view current regulations as ineffective tend to oppose governmental actions aimed at protecting and restoring Puget Sound. Support for one policy measure-tax credits for environmentally-friendly business practices-is not significantly affected by political party affiliation. These findings demonstrate that environmental awareness can influence public support for environmental policy tools. However, the nature of particular management interventions and other social forces can have important mitigating effects and need to be considered by practitioners attempting to develop environment-related social indicators and generate consensus around the need for action to address environmental problems.

Many of the world's most vulnerable and rapidly changing ecosystems are also among the most data-poor, leading to an increased interest in use of local ecological knowledge (LEK) to document long-term environmental change. The integration of multiple knowledge sources for assessing species abundance and distribution has gained traction over the past decade as a growing number of case studies show concordance between LEK and scientific data. This study advances the use of quantitative approaches for synthesizing LEK by presenting a novel application of bootstrapping and statistical modeling to evaluate variance in ecological observations of fisheries practitioners. We developed an historical record of abundance for 22 marine species in Puget Sound, Washington (USA), using LEK, and we quantified variation in perceptions of abundance trends among fishers, divers, and researchers. These individuals differed in aspects of their information environments, which are characterized by how, when, and where an individual has acquired ecological information. Abundance trends derived from interviews suggest that populations of long-lived rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) have been in decline since at least the 1960s and that three rockfishes protected under the Endangered Species Act were perceived as relatively less abundant than other species. Differences in perception of rockfish abundance trends among age groups were consistent with our hypothesis that the reported magnitude of decline in abundance would increase with age, with younger respondents more likely to report high abundance than older individuals across all periods. Temporal patterns in the mean and variance of reported rockfish abundance indices were qualitatively similar between fishers and researchers; however, fishers reported higher indices of abundance than researchers for all but one rockfish species. The two respondent groups reported similar changes in rockfish abundance from the 1940s to 2000s, except for two recreationally valuable species that fishers perceived as having undergone greater declines than perceived by researchers. When aggregated at appropriate spatial-temporal scales and in a culturally appropriate manner, observations of resource users are a valuable source of ecological information. Continued development of creative analytical tools for synthesizing multiple knowledge sources will be essential for advancing the formal use of LEK in assessments of marine species.

High bycatch of non-target species and species of conservation concern often drives the implementation of fisheries policies. However, species- or fishery-specific policies may lead to indirect consequences, positive or negative, for other species or fisheries. We use an Atlantis ecosystem model of the Northern Gulf of California to evaluate the effects of fisheries policies directed at reducing bycatch of vaquita (Phocoena sinus) on other species of conservation concern, priority target species, and metrics of ecosystem function and structure. Vaquita, a Critically Endangered porpoise endemic to the Upper Gulf of California, are frequently entangled by finfish gillnets and shrimp driftnets. We tested five fishery management scenarios, projected over 30 years (2008 to 2038), directed at vaquita conservation. The scenarios consider progressively larger spatial restrictions for finfish gillnets and shrimp driftnets. The most restrictive scenario resulted in the highest biomass of species of conservation concern; the scenario without any conservation measures in place resulted in the lowest. Vaquita experienced the largest population increase of any functional group; their biomass increased 2.7 times relative to initial (2008) levels under the most restrictive spatial closure scenario. Bycatch of sea lions, sea turtles, and totoaba decreased > 80% in shrimp driftnets and at least 20% in finfish gillnet fleets under spatial management. We found indirect effects on species and ecosystem function and structure as a result of vaquita management actions. Biomass and catch of forage fish declined, which could affect lower-trophic level fisheries, while other species such as skates, rays, and sharks increased in both biomass and catch. When comparing across performance metrics, we found that scenarios that increased ecosystem function and structure resulted in lower economic performance indicators, underscoring the need for management actions that consider ecological and economic tradeoffs as part of the integrated management of the Upper Gulf of California.

Background: Minimizing fishery bycatch threats might involve trade-offs between maintaining viable populations and economic benefits. Understanding these trade-offs can help managers reconcile conflicting goals. An example is a set of bycatch reduction measures for the Critically Endangered vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus), in the Northern Gulf of California, Mexico. The vaquita is an endemic species threatened with extinction by artisanal net bycatch within its limited range; in this area fisheries are the chief source of economic productivity., Methodology/principal Findings: We analyze trade-offs between conservation of the vaquita and fisheries, using an end-to-end Atlantis ecosystem model for the Northern Gulf of California. Atlantis is a spatially-explicit model intended as a strategic tool to test alternative management strategies. We simulated increasingly restrictive fisheries regulations contained in the vaquita conservation plan: implementing progressively larger spatial management areas that exclude gillnets, shrimp driftnets and introduce a fishing gear that has no vaquita bycatch. We found that only the most extensive spatial management scenarios recovered the vaquita population above the threshold necessary to downlist the species from Critically Endangered. The scenario that excludes existing net gear from the 2008 area of vaquita distribution led to moderate decrease in net present value (US$ 42 million) relative to the best-performing scenario and a two-fold increase in the abundance of adult vaquita over the course of 30 years., Conclusions/significance: Extended spatial management resulted in the highest recovery of the vaquita population. The economic cost of proposed management actions was unequally divided between fishing fleets; the loss of value from finfish gillnet fisheries was never recovered. Our analysis shows that managers will have to confront difficult trade-offs between management scenarios for vaquita conservation.

Trophic ecosystem models are one promising tool for providing ecosystem-based management advice. Diet and interaction rate parameters are critical in defining the behavior of these models, and will greatly influence any predictions made in response to management perturbations. However, most trophic ecosystem models must rely on a patchwork of data availability and must contend with knowledge gaps and poor quantification of uncertainty. Here we present a statistical method for combining diet information from field samples and literature to describe trophic relationships at the level of functional groups. In this example, original fieldwork in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico, provides gut content data for targeted and untargeted fish species. The field data are pooled with diet composition information from FishBase, an online data repository. Diet information is averaged across stomachs to represent an average predator, and then the data are bootstrapped to generate likelihood profiles. These are fit to a Dirichlet function, and from the resulting marginal distributions, maximum-likelihood estimates are generated with confidence intervals representing the likely contribution to diet for each predator-prey combination. We characterize trophic linkages into two broad feeding guilds, pelagic and demersal feeders, and explore differentiation within those guilds. We present an abbreviated food web for the northern Gulf of California based on the results of this study. This food web will form the basis of a trophic dynamic model. Compared to the common method of averaging diet compositions across predators, this statistical approach is less influenced by the presence of long tails in the distributions, which correspond to rare feeding events, and is therefore better suited to small data sets.

Background: One of the greatest obstacles to moving ecosystem-based management (EBM) from concept to practice is the lack of a systematic approach to defining ecosystem-level decision criteria, or reference points that trigger management action., Methodology/principal Findings: To assist resource managers and policymakers in developing EBM decision criteria, we introduce a quantitative, transferable method for identifying utility thresholds. A utility threshold is the level of human-induced pressure (e.g., pollution) at which small changes produce substantial improvements toward the EBM goal of protecting an ecosystem's structural (e.g., diversity) and functional (e.g., resilience) attributes. The analytical approach is based on the detection of nonlinearities in relationships between ecosystem attributes and pressures. We illustrate the method with a hypothetical case study of (1) fishing and (2) nearshore habitat pressure using an empirically-validated marine ecosystem model for British Columbia, Canada, and derive numerical threshold values in terms of the density of two empirically-tractable indicator groups, sablefish and jellyfish. We also describe how to incorporate uncertainty into the estimation of utility thresholds and highlight their value in the context of understanding EBM trade-offs., Conclusions/significance: For any policy scenario, an understanding of utility thresholds provides insight into the amount and type of management intervention required to make significant progress toward improved ecosystem structure and function. The approach outlined in this paper can be applied in the context of single or multiple human-induced pressures, to any marine, freshwater, or terrestrial ecosystem, and should facilitate more effective management.

Because anthropogenic influences threaten the degradation of many ecosystems, determining where organisms live during early life-history stages and the extent to which different areas contribute individuals to adult populations is critical for the management and conservation of a species. Working in Puget Sound, Washington State in the United States, and using a common flatfish (English sole, Parophrys vetulus), we sought to establish (using otolith chemistry) which areas contribute age-0 fish to age-1 population(s), the extent to which this pattern was consistent between two years, and whether this spatial pattern of contribution coincides with surveys of age-0 fish and/or the available area of nearshore habitat. Our study indicated completely different spatial patterns of fish nursery use between the two years of sampling. We highlight that the contribution of individuals from nursery areas is not related to density of recently settled English sole or the available area of nearshore habitat (depth <10 m) in Puget Sound, nor can we draw conclusions based on environmental data (precipitation, water salinity, light transmission, pH, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature). The results of this study highlight (1) the need for assessing the temporal patterns of nursery habitat use, and (2) that, in order to conservatively manage a species and its population(s), it may be necessary to protect several areas that are used intermittently by that species.

The historical, political and scientific aspects of salmon hatchery programmes designed to enhance fishery production, or to recover endangered populations, are reviewed. We start by pointing out that the establishment of hatcheries has been a political response to societal demands for harvest and conservation; given this social context, we then critically examined the levels of activity, the biological risks, and the economic analysis associated with salmon hatchery programmes. A rigorous analysis of the impacts of hatchery programmes was hindered by the lack of standardized data on release sizes and survival rates at all ecological scales, and since hatchery programme objectives are rarely defined, it was also difficult to measure their effectiveness at meeting release objectives. Debates on the genetic effects of hatchery programmes on wild fish have been dominated by whether correct management practices can reduce negative outcomes, but we noted that there has been an absence of programmatic research approaches addressing this important issue. Competitive interactions between hatchery and wild fish were observed to be complex, but studies researching approaches to reduce these interactions at all ecological scales during the entire salmon life history have been rare, and thus are not typically considered in hatchery management. Harvesting of salmon released from fishery enhancement hatcheries likely impacts vulnerable wild populations; managers have responded to this problem by mass marking hatchery fish, so that fishing effort can be directed towards hatchery populations. However, we noted that the effectiveness of this approach is dependant on accurate marking and production of hatchery fish with high survival rates, and it is not yet clear whether selective fishing will prevent overharvest of wild populations. Finally, research demonstrating disease transmission from hatchery fish to wild populations was observed to be equivocal; evidence in this area has been constrained by the lack of effective approaches to studying the fate of pathogens in the wild. We then reviewed several approaches to studying the economic consequences of hatchery activities intended to inform the social decisions surrounding programmes, but recognized that placing monetary value on conservation efforts or on hatcheries that mitigate cultural groups' loss of historical harvest opportunities may complicate these analyses. We noted that economic issues have rarely been included in decision making on hatchery programmes. We end by identifying existing major knowledge gaps, which, if filled, could contribute towards a fuller understanding of the role that hatchery programmes could play in meeting divergent goals. However, we also recognized that many management recommendations arising from such research may involve trade-offs between different risks, and that decisions about these trade-offs must occur within a social context. Hatcheries have played an important role in sustaining some highly endangered populations, and it is possible that reform of practices will lead to an increase in the number of successful programmes. However, a serious appraisal of the role of hatcheries in meeting broader needs is urgently warranted and should take place at the scientific, but more effectively, at the societal level.

Fish body size, a key driver of many aspects of fish population biology and ecology, is affected by fisheries that deplete the largest individuals. Rockfish (genus Sebastes) are a diverse group that has been heavily fished on the U.S. West Coast in recent decades. We examined trawl survey data from 1980 to 2001 to determine spatial and temporal trends in body size and density of 16 shelf rockfish species, including six that are considered overfished. Mean individual mass and maximum observed mass declined in the majority of species in one or more zoogeographic regions between central California and Washington. Density changes were far more variable in time and space, but in all regions, density declines were most often associated with large-bodied rockfish. We next estimated the impact of size and density changes on energy consumption and fecundity in a five-species rockfish assemblage that includes bocaccio (S. paucispinis), a large-bodied, overfished species. Indexes of both consumption and fecundity by the assemblage increased in the southern portion of the study area between 1980 and 2001 but decreased in the northern portion. Allocation of energy and reproductive potential within the assemblage shifted dramatically: relative to bocaccio, total energy consumption and fecundity indexes for the other four species increased by orders of magnitude from 1980 to 2001. These changes in community structure may affect the ability of bocaccio and other large rockfish species to recover from overfishing, especially in light of long-term declines in zooplankton production that may also be affecting rockfish size and production. Addressing these issues may require a regional, multispecies management approach.

Modern fishery science, which began in 1957 with Beverton and Holt, is ca. 50 years old. At its inception, fishery science was limited by a nineteenth century mechanistic worldview and by computational technology; thus, the relatively simple equations of population ecology became the fundamental ecological science underlying fisheries. The time has come for this to change and for community ecology to become the fundamental ecological science underlying fisheries. This point will be illustrated with two examples. First, when viewed from a community perspective, excess production must be considered in the context of biomass left for predators. We argue that this is a better measure of the effects of fisheries than spawning biomass per recruit. Second, we shall analyse a simple, but still multi-species, model for fishery management that considers the alternatives of harvest regulations, inshore marine protected areas and offshore marine protected areas. Population or community perspectives lead to very different predictions about the efficacy of reserves.

Non-indigenous species may be the most severe environmental threat the world now faces. Fishes, in particular, have been intentionally introduced worldwide and have commonly caused the local extinction of native fish. Despite their importance, the impact of introduced fishes on threatened populations of Pacific salmon has never been systemically examined. Here, we take advantage of several unique datasets from the Columbia River Basin to address the impact of non-indigenous brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, on threatened spring/summer-run chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. More than 41 000 juvenile chinook were individually marked, and their survival in streams without brook trout was nearly double the survival in streams with brook trout. Furthermore, when brook trout were absent, habitat quality was positively associated with chinook survival, but when brook trout were present no relationship between chinook survival and habitat quality was evident. The difference in juvenile chinook survival between sites with, and without, brook trout would increase population growth rate (lambda) by ca. 2.5%. This increase in lambda would be sufficient to reverse the negative population growth observed in many chinook populations. Because many of the populations we investigated occur in wilderness areas, their habitat has been considered pristine; however, our results emphasize that non-indigenous species are present and may have a dramatic impact, even in remote regions that otherwise appear pristine.

A major challenge in sustainability science is identifying targets that maximize ecosystem benefits to humanity while minimizing the risk of crossing critical system thresholds. One critical threshold is the biomass at which populations become so depleted that their population growth rates become negative-depensation. Here, we evaluate how the value of monitoring information increases as a natural resource spends more time near the critical threshold. This benefit emerges because higher monitoring precision promotes higher yield and a greater capacity to recover from overharvest. We show that precautionary buffers that trigger increased monitoring precision as resource levels decline may offer a way to minimize monitoring costs and maximize profits. In a world of finite resources, improving our understanding of the trade-off between precision in estimates of population status and the costs of mismanagement will benefit stakeholders that shoulder the burden of these economic and social costs.