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After 16 years under a limited access program with effort controls, the New England groundfish fishery transitioned to a catch share management system in 2010. For much of its earlier management history, issues related to fishing capacity were paramount as effort controls were increasingly restrictive to meet biological objectives. As the size of the active fleet declined from over 1000 vessels from 1994 to 2001 to less than 400 vessels in 2012, the management concern shifted to fleet diversity. Fleet diversity has been cast in terms of vessels based on characteristics such as size, gear, and region rather than their share in landings or economic value. Measuring fleet diversity with indices commonly used in the biodiversity literature such as richness, effective diversity based on the Shannon index, and evenness appears appropriate for this context. In this paper these indices were applied to measure changes in diversity of the active New England groundfish fleet from 1996 to 2012. Fleet diversity as measured by the Shannon Index has declined by approximately 35% from 1996 to 2012, but has remained relatively stable since 2007. Forty vessel types were present in all 17 years, which accounted for about 85% of active groundfish vessels and over 90% of total groundfish landings in all years. Even though the fleet size and overall diversity have declined the “core” groundfish fleet remains stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examined interactions between targeted fish populations, aspects of the fishing industry and land use changes along two ports in New England. By tracking changes in land uses over a two-decade period using parcel level data and geographic information system (GIS) tools, we examined the relationship of changes in species biomass, landings and other fishing industry variables to community spatial change. Using logistic regression models we assessed the impacts on essential infrastructure for continued fishing industry activity. Our findings have implications for land use policy that should accompany efforts being made to rehabilitate fish stocks; it should ensure that current marine infrastructure will remain in place to support the fishing industry if and when species rebound. Our models show that in New Bedford Harbor, the larger of the two ports, increasing scallop biomass (considered a long-term factor) is associated with the increase of marine-related land uses. In Provincetown Harbor, short-term factors, such as value and volume of fish landings as well as stock sizes, influence land use change. These findings suggest that the smaller port (Provincetown) is more vulnerable to market conditions and therefore in need of greater land use controls to prevent the conversion of marine-related uses. We propose some directions for further research and present the methodology used as one that can be applied to research questions of a similar nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]