ICES SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

RAPPORTS SCIENTIFIQUES DU CIEM

ICES INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE EXPLORATION OF THE SEA CIEM CONSEIL INTERNATIONAL POUR L’EXPLORATION DE LA MER

WORKING GROUP ON THE HISTORY OF FISH AND FISHERIES (WGHIST)

VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 110

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer

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ICES Scientific Reports

Volume 2 | Issue 110

WORKING GROUP ON THE HISTORY OF FISH AND FISHERIES (WGHIST)

Recommended format for purpose of citation:

ICES. 2020. Working Group on the History of Fish and Fisheries (WGHIST). ICES Scientific Reports. 2:110. 26 pp. http://doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.7620

Editors

Emily Klein • Ruth Thurstan

Authors

Ruth Thurstan • Emily Klein • Bryony Caswell • Floris Bennema • Henn Ojaveer • Brian R. MacKenzie • Loren McClenachan • Georgina Hunt • Georg Engelhard • Matthew McKenzie • Adrian Jordaan • Sarah Buckley • Biatriz Dias • Anatole Danto • Samuel P. Iglésias • Jonas Hentati Sundberg • Jennifer Coston-Guarini • Molly Graham • Philine zu Ermgassen • Jock Currie • Poul Holm

ICES | WGHIST 2020 | i

Contents

i Executive summary ....................................................................................................................... ii ii Expert group information ..............................................................................................................iii 1 WGHIST outcomes and achievements .......................................................................................... 1 2 Report on the terms of reference ................................................................................................. 3 Annex 1: List of participants............................................................................................................ 6 Annex 2: WGHIST resolutions ......................................................................................................... 7 Annex 3: Summary of presented work under ToR (c) ................................................................... 11 Annex 4: Summary of resources and methods under ToR(d) ....................................................... 26

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i Executive summary

The ICES Working Group on the History of Fish and Fisheries (WGHIST) is a forum for interdis-ciplinary research on social-ecological change in marine and fisheries systems over multi-deca-dal to centennial timescales.

WGHIST comprises a diverse group of researchers, including marine biologists, fisheries scien-tists, historians, and historical ecologists, from Europe and North America, as well as Australia, Russia, and South Africa. WGHIST provided a platform for the sharing and reporting of a wide range of research on marine and fisheries systems change over time, including the use of novel and non-traditional data sources and methodologies to identify and interpret these changes. WGHIST members also worked with the ICES Secretariat to forward digital tools to make his-torical resources more accessible and regarding WGHIST’s potential to support ICES Fisheries and Ecosystem Overviews.

WGHIST engaged with the larger research community on the following manuscripts, still in de-velopment or recently submitted: (1) the acute value of the past in the Anthropocene; (2) the importance of and advice on cross-disciplinary conversations; (3) the legacy of Sidney Holt; (4) the power and consequence of qualitative information; and (5) the social and cultural drivers of technology creep.

Finally, WGHIST found extensive evidence for defining elements of blue growth in the past, and explored examples from around the world to delineate lessons for today’s blue growth agendas, research now published in Fish and Fisheries. Future work will forward additional digital tools to access historical resources, develop links to other related data resources, and progress connec-tions between lessons from the past and contemporary management and policy.

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ii Expert group information

Expert group name Working Group on the History of Fish and Fisheries (WGHIST)

Expert group cycle Multiannual

Year cycle started 2018

Reporting year in cycle 3/3

Chair(s) Ruth H. Thurstan, UK

Emily S. Klein, USA

Meeting venue(s) and dates 4–7 September 2018, Brest, France (15 participants)

17–20 June 2019, Penryn, United Kingdom (8 participants)

15–18 June 2020, online (23 participants)

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1 WGHIST outcomes and achievements

WGHIST members span a diversity of disciplines and expertise, from fisheries scientists to his-torians to palaeoecologists, and employ a correspondingly wide range of data sources and re-search approaches. Members also hail from across the ICES region and beyond, and meeting attendees over all three years included researchers from the North Atlantic as well as the Medi-terranean, Australia, Africa, and Russia. As in earlier iterations, WGHIST provided a platform for the diverse membership to share work, develop shared goals, engage collaboratively across disciplinary and institutional boundaries as well as the science-policy interface, and connect early career scientists with the ICES and wider scientific communities. Multiple tangible outputs were identified and advanced, particularly regarding collaborative manuscripts for peer review, with engagement among members participating in person and remotely. Work by WGHIST con-tinued to forward the discipline of marine historical ecology, and place research of social-ecolog-ical systems through time in current policy and conservation contexts.

WGHIST Chairs and members also endeavoured to highlight the work of the WG via social me-dia (under #WGHIST) and other platforms to engage with the ICES and wider scientific commu-nity as well as the public. Chairs Klein and Thurstan, along with other members and co-authors, communicated research findings across online platforms, having contributed to five press arti-cles and blogs through 2018–2020, including writing a Feature Article for ICES News. Finally, WGHIST opened each of the meetings with a public symposium held in partnership with their host institutions. The 2018 meeting at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale also included a public art exhibition and evening reception, generously provided by a partnership of the hosting organizations. Finally, Chairs Thurstan and Klein presented the work of WGHIST and ICES at each opening symposia as well as at the 2018 Oceans Past conference in Bremerhaven, Germany, where Klein presented the aims of WGHIST as part of the conference opening plenary. Klein also presented WGHIST work at the remote American Fisheries Society meeting in 2020.

Specific achievements

• Manuscripts developed during WGHIST meetings and via collaborations made possible by this WG are currently underway: 1) advice on cross-disciplinary collaborations for early career researchers, 2) the importance of the past for the Anthropocene, 3) the legacy of Sidney Holt for fisheries science and beyond, 4) the power of words and images in marine management, and 5) the multiple outcomes of technology creep.

• WGHIST Chairs worked with the ICES Data Centre to outline ways forward for addi-tional data tools related to historical resources; WGHIST members reviewed the online historical metadata on the Metadata Catalogue.

• Member presentations at the following conferences: Oceans Past VII (2018), Oceans Past VIII (2020), American Fisheries Society (2020).

• Engagement with ICES and the wider scientific community via social media (under the hashtag #WGHIST), as well as an invited piece for ICES News, “Lessons from history for today's blue growth agendas” (May 2020), selected as an ICES News Feature Article.

• Press engagement on a WGHIST collaborative journal article, including The Economist Group World Ocean Initiative and The Brink.

• The following scientific papers, popular articles, theses, and book chapters were pub-lished which benefited or resulted from discussion or collaborations developed during previous WGHIST meetings and correspondence (WGHIST member author in bold):

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Currie J.C., Atkinson L.J., Sink K.J. and Attwood C.G. (2020) Long-term change of demersal fish assem-blages on the Inshore Agulhas Bank between 1904 and 2015. Frontiers in Marine Science 7: 355. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2020.00355.

Bennema F.P., Engelhard G.H., Lindeboom H. Ostrea edulis beds in the central North Sea: delineation, ecol-ogy and restoration. ICES Journal of Marine Science, In Press. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsaa134.

Caswell B.A., Klein E.S., Alleway H.K., Ball J.E., Botero J., Cardinale M., Eero M., Engelhard G.H., For-tibuoni T., Giraldo A.-J., Hentati-Sundberg J., Jones, P., Kittinger J.N., Krause G., Lajus D.J., Lajus J., Lau C.Y.L, Lescrauwaet A.-K., MacKenzie B.R., McKenzie M., Ojaveer H., Pandolfi J.M., Raicevich S., Russell B.D., Sundelöf A., Thorpe R.B., zu Ermgassen P.S.E., Thurstan R.H. (2020). Something old, something new: Historical perspectives provide lessons for blue growth agendas. Fish and Fisheries. doi: 10.1111/faf.12460.

Currie J.C., Sink K.J., Attwood C.G., Atkinson L.J., and Engelhard G.H. (2018). Reconstructing the past: design and function of Granton otter trawl gear at the turn of the twentieth century, as used in South Africa’s first trawl surveys (1897–1904). Maritime Studies: 1–16.

Dias B.S., Frisk M.G. and Jordaan,A. (2019). Opening the tap: Increased riverine connectivity strengthens marine food web pathways. PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.

Dias B.S., Frisk, M.G. and Jordaan A. In review. Evaluating fishing effort reduction and habitat restoration as management strategies to promote alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) recovery using an ecosystem model.

Einberg H., Klais R., Rubene G., Kornilovs G., Putnis I., and Ojaveer H. (2019). Multidecadal dynamics of the Arctic copepod Limnocalanus macrurus in relation to environmental variability in the Baltic Sea. ICES Journal of Marine Science. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsz101.

Einberg H. Expected submission 2021. “Non-linear and non-stationary relationships in the Baltic Sea pelagic ecosystems.” PhD dissertation, Univ of Tartu; Supervisors H. Ojaveer & R. Klais.

Klein E.S.K, Caswell B.A., and Thurstan R.H. (2020). How the past can guide our stewardship of tomor-row’s sustainable. The Brink. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2020/how-the-past-can-guide-our-stewardship-of-sustainable-oceans-of-tomorrow/ [Also featured in BU Today, 29 June 2020)].

Klein E.S.K, Thurstan R.H., and Caswell B.A. (2020). Lessons from history for today’s blue growth agen-das. ICES Newsletter – feature article for May 2020. https://ices.dk/news-and-events/news-ar-chive/news/Pages/FEATURE-ARTICLEwghist.aspx.

MacKenzie B. R., and Ojaveer H. (2018). Evidence from the past: exploitation as cause of commercial ex-tinction of autumn-spawning herring in the Gulf of Riga, Baltic Sea. ICES Journal of Marine Science. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsy028.

Ojaveer H., MacKenzie B.R., Klais-Peets, R., Rubene, G., Spilev, H., and Ojaveer, E. In review. Individual somatic growth of two habitat-sharing herring spawning ecotypes under different ecosystem condi-tions.

Raicevich S., Barausse A., Canadelli E., Fortibuoni T., and Mazzoldi C. (2018). Historical ecology of semi-enclosed basins and coastal areas: past, present and future of seas at risk. Regional Studies in Marine Science. 21:1–6. doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2018.02.007.

Raicevich, S, Alegret J.-L., Frangoudes K., Giovanardi O., and Fortibuoni T. (2018). Community-based management of the Mediterranean coastal fisheries: Historical reminiscence or the root for new fisher-ies governance? Regional Studies in Marine Science. 21:86–93. doi.org/10.1016/j.rsma.2017.10.013.

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2 Report on the terms of reference

ToR(a) Collection and assembly of metadata on marine social-ecological systems through time, and further development of data products and best practices that en-courage the use of these resources Over 2018–2020, WGHIST members reviewed the metadata collated online within the ICES Cat-alogue. Members were encouraged to check their data and provide any updates, as well as in-clude new resources. At each meeting, members discussed the potential for digital tools to fur-ther provide useful online elements for the ICES and wider scientific communities. These in-cluded ways of making the historical metadata visible in the ICES Spatial Facility, and connec-tions to other resources (e.g. EMODNet, OPI, and OBIS). WGHIST continued discussions with the ICES Data Centre between meetings, yet updates to the ICES website precluded completion of additional online tools. Instead, WGHIST has forwarded a Recommendation on this, and ex-pects to continue this work in the next iteration of WGHIST if confirmed.

WGHIST members also remain focused on finding ways to make such resources accessible to a larger audience, and the potential for and importance of housing actual data and other informa-tional resources. Avenues for doing so from within ICES appear limited due to the need for per-haps significant financial and technological support, although collaboration with other platforms (e.g. EMODNet, OBIS) were noted as possible avenues. Further, not all WGHIST members are comfortable with providing data online, for a variety of reasons including misuse and loss of credibility. Consequently, the group agreed any avenues would need to allow for individual buy-in as well as being supported by accessible metadata and instructions to guide the use of such resources by the wider community.

Regardless of the reality of housing data online, meeting attendees engaged in discussions in all three years on the potential for providing guidance on best practices on the use of historical and long-term data sets. In particular, these included careful assessment and understanding of infor-mation context as well as the consideration of different forms of uncertainty, and accurately eval-uating historical and related resources. Members agreed on the importance of best practices guidelines, either as a report or via online resources, such as a Wiki page. Due to differing mem-ber attendance at meetings, concrete writing of these practices was not possible to forward sub-stantially during this iteration of WGHIST, but is proposed in the next iteration.

ToR(b) Review outcomes of WKIHSD meeting and peer-reviewed research from the historical ecology community, and from these consider preparing brief overviews of key historical information for submission to ICES Ecosystem and/or Fisheries Over-views The WKIHSD was originally due to take place in 2018, but was unable to convene. In an attempt to forward this ToR, WGHIST members discussed alternative ways that WGHIST can and is helping to connect historical data with stock assessments and fisheries science. Members initially considered the potential for a future workshop to replace the cancelled WKIHSD, but despite general interest from the WGHIST membership in enhancing the evidence base around historical data and its contribution to stock assessment, we were unable to identify ICES members with the time and required skills to lead such a workshop. WGHIST members continue to be inter-

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ested in enhancing the evidence base around historical data and stock assessment (i.e., how his-torical data can enhance stock assessment and associated decision making) and forwarding con-crete outcomes, but dedicated expertise from stock assessment is required.

In addition, WGHIST chairs discussed how members might contribute to Ecosystem and/or Fish-eries Overviews with ICES leadership (H. Ojaveer) as well as with members at the 2019 and 2020 meetings. WGHIST members felt that the inclusion of historical data into ICES Ecosystem and/or Fisheries Overviews would be a positive step towards enhancing the visibility of historical data as well as critical for clearly understanding current ecosystem conditions. In 2020, meeting at-tendees further noted the importance of such information for other management strategies, such as Ecosystem Assessments in the USA. Collectively, attendees agreed on possible ways forward, such as providing historical background as needed on a case-by-case basis and led by local ex-perts within WGHIST membership.

ToR(c) Evaluate changes in marine ecological and social-ecological systems through time via cross-disciplinary collaboration, and demonstrate the importance of this knowledge for contemporary science and management WGHIST opened the 2018, 2019, and 2020 meetings with public mini-symposia, which high-lighted ongoing work exploring changes in marine ecological and social-ecological systems. At-tendees at all three meetings also shared completed and ongoing research under this ToR. Work represented (1) examples of research into social-ecological changes through time, as well as (2) the importance of this understanding for contemporary science and policy. Under (1), research addressed the ecological and social impacts of trawling on both sides of the North Atlantic, the pairing of field research and modelling for deeper understanding of the Northwest Atlantic eco-system, long-term anthropogenic outcomes on marine benthos as well as on fish in ecosystems globally, long-term drivers in plankton abundance, use of fishers’ local ecological knowledge over time, and the identification of species’ spatial shifts and local extinctions. For (2), many members described how their research was or could be linked to contemporary science and pol-icy, e.g. historical narratives in management policy, the initiation of fisheries and the use of long-term data in current stock assessment and management strategies as well as for data-poor sys-tems. Future opportunities for collaboration were also highlighted to the group (e.g., L McCle-nachan’s current Fellowship work). Further detail on this research is in Annex 3.

In particular at the 2019 and 2020 meetings, attendees made significant progress on several col-laborative manuscripts, which were advanced between meetings by co-authors. In 2019, at-tendees developed two papers, one a perspectives piece on the significance of history in the An-thropocene, and the second on the importance of holding cross-disciplinary conversations, aimed at the early career readership. The first paper was proposed but rejected as a perspective for Trends in Ecology and Evolution, with alternative avenues for resubmission currently being considered. In 2020, attendees at the WGHIST commenced two additional manuscripts, one on the value of qualitative data for understanding historical trajectories through to the present, and the second exploring under-researched dimensions of technology creep and its implications for fisheries monitoring and management.

ToR(d) Continue to use non-traditional data sources and approaches for advancing our knowledge of change and dynamics in marine ecological and social-ecological systems through time Over the course of the meeting, WGHIST members continued to highlight work using non-tra-ditional data sources and approaches. Discussions followed these presentations with the aim of sharing methods and resources. Attendees highlighted the variety of sources they were using to

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understand temporal dynamics, including industry magazines, fisher interviews and oral histo-ries, newspapers and other popular media, digitised international archives, and documentary and museum collections. In terms of methods and analytical approaches, members shared work utilising 3D morphometrics, empirical dynamic modeling, and various approaches for translat-ing qualitative information for fisheries management aims that generally require more quantita-tive data. WGHIST meeting attendees also went on group field trips during the 2018 and 2019 meetings to local and regional archives and libraries to survey the resources there. In each case, the archives housed impressive collections with significant value for the marine science and management community, and represent rich opportunities for future collaboration. More on these resources and approaches in Annex 4.

Collectively, the works and resources shared at WGHIST meetings over this iteration for ToR (d) emphasised the broad range of interests and expertise available through WGHIST members. In addition to this ongoing research, there is an increasing global body of work examining the util-ity of neglected or unconventional data sources in natural resource management (for example, the EU COST Oceans Past Platform Network, the Oceans Past Initiative, and the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance), within which a number of WGHIST members are involved. These sources have great potential to provide additional insight alongside traditional data, encourage interdis-ciplinary work, and deepen understanding of data poor or limited systems.

Finally, the manuscript on cross-disciplinary conversations, developed under ToR(c), also con-tributed to this ToR by providing advice on approaching researchers in other fields who use alternative sources and methods.

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Annex 1: List of participants

NAME INSTITUTE COUNTRY (OF

INSTITUTE) EMAIL

MEETINGS

ATTENDED Ruth Thurstan (co-chair) Exeter University United Kingdom R.Thurstan@exeter.ac.uk 2018, 2019, 2020 Emily Klein (co-chair) Boston University United States emily.klein04@gmail.com 2018, 2019, 2020 Adrian Jordaan University of Massachusetts United States ajordaan@eco.umass.edu 2018, 2020 Alec Moore University of Bangor United States a.moore@bangor.ac.uk 2020 Anatole Danto Centre National de Recher-

che Scientifique France anatole.danto@orange.fr 2018

Ann-Katrien Lescrauwaet Flanders Marine Institute Belgium annkatrien.lescrauwaet@vliz.be 2018 Bia Dias Univ of Massachusetts /

Univ of Washington United States biadsdias@gmail.com 2018, 2020

Bryony Caswell University of Hull United Kingdom B.A.Caswell@hull.ac.uk 2018, 2019, 2020 Carolyn Hall United States carolynjhall29@gmail.com 2020 Christine Overgaard Denmark christine.overgaard@gmail.com 2020 Diego Barneche University of Exeter United Kingdom d.barneche@exeter.ac.uk 2019 Floris Bennema Netherlands fbennema@xs4all.nl 2018, 2020 Georg Engellhard Cefas United Kingdom georg.engelhard@cefas.co.uk 2020 Georgina Hunt Newcastle Univeristy United Kingdom g.l.hunt@newcastle.ac.uk 2020 Henn Ojaveer Technical University of

Denmark; University of Tartu

Denmark; Estonia henn.ojaveer@ut.ee 2018, 2020

Jennifer Coston-Gaurini Université de Bretagne Oc-cidentale

France Jennifer.Coston@univ-brest.fr 2018

Jock Currie Nelson Mandela University and South African National Biodiversity Institute

South Africa jockcurrie@gmail.com 2018, 2020

John Nicholls Trinity Ireland john.nicholls@tcd.ie 2020 Jonas Hentati-Sundberg Swedish University of Agri-

cultural Sciences Sweden jonas.sundberg@slu.se 2018

Karen Alexander United States piscepuella@gmail.com 2020 Loren McClenachan Colby College United States loren.mcclenachan@gmail.com 2020 Matt McKenzie (host) University of Conn United States matthew.mckenzie@uconn.edu 2018. 2019, 2020 Munshidha Ibraham University of Exeter

United Kingdom -@exeter.ac.uk 2019

Peter Jones United Kingdom dr_jones_1@hotmail.com 2020 Poul Holm Trinity Ireland holmp@tcd.ie 2019, 2020 Robin Alden United States robin.alden3@gmail.com 2020 Romain Grancher The French National Centre

for Scientific Research France grancher.ro@gmail.com 2020

Sara Hornborg RISE Reserach Institutes of Sweden

Sweden sara.hornborg@ri.se 2020

Sarah Buckley Sea Fisheries Protection Au-thority

Ireland s.buckley2@uq.edu.Au 2018

Ted Ames United States ted.ames7@gmail.com 2020 William Leavenworth United States william.leavenworth@gmail.com 2020

Non-member attendees are in italics (invited experts and guests)

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Annex 2: WGHIST resolutions

The Working Group on the History of Fish and Fisheries (WGHIST), chaired by Ruth Thurstan, UK, and Emily Klein, USA, will work on ToRs and generate deliverables as listed in the Table below.

MEETING

DATES VENUE REPORTING DETAILS COMMENTS

(CHANGE IN CHAIR, ETC.)

Year 2018 4–7 September

Brest, France Interim report by 1 December

Year 2019 17–20 June Penryn, UK

Year 2020 15–18 June by corresp/ webex

Final report by 15 August

physical meeting cancelled - remote work

ToR descriptors

TOR DESCRIPTION BACKGROUND

SCIENCE PLAN

CODES DURATI

ON EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

a Collection and assembly of metadata on marine social-ecological systems through time, and further development of data products and best practices that encourage the use of these resources.

Data from WGHIST supports the development of tools for marine living resource management and provides data to the global community via the ICES Data Centre. In addition, WGHIST can work with ICES Data Centre to identify opportunities for promoting and facilitating access to and the digitization of historical and archival resources housed by other institutions. WGHIST can also develop guidelines for the use of and best practise in using long-term/historical data in research and management.

4.1; 6.1; 7.7

All years

Digital products, such as index-ing WGHIST metadata on the ICES Spatial Facility.

Guidelines on best practice within ICES and beyond when using and/or applying historical data to contemporary advice and/or management.

b Review outcomes of WKIHSD meeting and peer-reviewed research from the historical ecology community, and from these consider preparing brief over-views of key histori-cal information for submission to ICES Ecosystem and/or Fisheries Overviews.

ICES Overviews present an op-portunity to increase the visibility of available historical data via brief summaries that include key aspects of specific ecoregions/fish-eries (e.g., historical pressures, year of commencement of signifi-cant fishing activity, historical landings, historical distribution of fishing/other activities compared to today). WGHIST proposes to submit information, based upon the outcomes of WKIHSD and peer-reviewed research from the historical ecology community, on a number of ecoregions and/or fisheries in a form similar to

5.4; 6.6; 7.7

All years

Overview text, suitable for in-clusion in ICES Overviews (in a comparable format to Trends in Non-Indigenous Species), on key historical activities and data available on ecoregions and/or fisheries.

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‘Trends in Non-Indigenous Spe-cies’, for consideration for inclu-sion in ICES Overviews.

c Evaluate changes in marine ecological and social-ecological systems through time via cross-disci-plinary collabora-tion, and demon-strate the im-portance of this knowledge for con-temporary science and management.

The interdisciplinary nature of WGHIST, with expertise in ma-rine ecology, fisheries biology, historical ecology, palaeoecology, social and environmental history, offers a unique forum for conduct-ing research into marine social-ecological systems and the scale, direction and drivers of social-ecological change through time.

2.2; 5.4; 7.7

All years, culminating in year 3

Submission of (1) manuscript re-viewing the development of ma-jor fishing technologies through time, and the ecological, social and/or cultural changes facili-tated by these innovations; and/or

(2) manuscript on the benefits and challenges of cross-discipli-nary collaborative work.

d Continue to use non-traditional data sources and ap-proaches for ad-vancing our knowledge of change and dynam-ics in marine ecolog-ical and social-eco-logical systems through time.

Several members of WGHIST work with unconventional re-sources and approaches, and are well versed in using interdiscipli-nary methods to extract non-tradi-tional data and interpret trends over long (decadal to centennial) periods of time.

1.9, 4.1, 7.7

All years, culminating in year 3

Submission of manuscript or al-ternative (WGHIST report) on non-traditional methods, ap-proaches (e.g. empirical dy-namic modelling, time series analysis), their outcomes and application (e.g., data poor fish-eries).

Summary of the Work Plan

Year 1 In Year 1, WGHIST will work with the ICES Data Centre to explore the opportunities for developing data products that encourage use of and enhance the visibility of historical and long-term data (ToR a). Work on the proposed manuscripts (ToRs c, d) will also commence during the Year 1 meeting, as will identification of historical data/literature for the ecosystem overviews (ToR b). Potential areas of interest already identified by WGHIST members for ToRs c and d include: quantifying changes in ecosystem services over time, detailing fishing technology change and cumulative impacts upon fishing efficiency, and invoking cross-disciplinary knowledge to expand our understanding of linked social-ecological system change through time. Post-meeting work will involve soliciting contributions from the wider WGHIST membership list and continued development of manuscripts. WGHIST will also support WKIHSD with data resources and expertise (ToR a).

The WGHIST 2018 meeting will also re-establish links with the ICES SIHD and other WG with expertise relevant to WGHIST aims, through invitation of SIHD and WG Chairs to the WGHIST meeting, whether in person or remotely, and by the WGHIST Chairs remaining in communication with SIHD and other WG throughout the year. These efforts aim to strengthen cross-disciplinary ties and enhance communication and learning among ICES WGs. Links with external groups (e.g. Oceans Past Initiative) will also be maintained to enhance interdisciplinary learning and collaboration.

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Year 2 and 3 In years 2 and 3 WGHIST will continue to develop digital tools for historical metadata, explore opportunities for improving the accessibility of historical data for use by the scientific community, and develop protocols for best practise when using historical data, potentially in collaboration with the ICES Data Centre and other WGs. While these tools will be finalised in year 3, it is our hope that progress will be ongoing throughout years 1 and 2, including the provision of digital updates to the ICES community during this time. If so, this will afford WGHIST members and the wider ICES community multiple opportunities to make use of these tools and feedback to the Chairs and Data Centre on these tools, thus enabling the tools to be improved over this iteration.

Years 2 and 3 will also see progress on the proposed manuscripts and ecosystem overviews, and the WGHIST chairs will work to maintain and enhance connections with SIHD and other relevant WG, as above. Year 2 will forward manuscript and guidelines in our ToRs, which will be circulated among WGHIST members in between the metings. This circulation may include scientists and practitioners with targeted expertise outside WGHIST. In both years, specific research from WGHIST will be used to expand this work. Deliverables will then be completed in Year 3.

Supporting information

Priority The value of historical marine ecology for evaluating current ecosystem health and providing appropriate baselines is now well published. In addition, understanding social-ecological system change has great potential for greater appreciation of both the system resilience and how they may change in the future.

Scientific Scope: WGHIST 2018-2020 will focus on operationalizing historical data for current scientific questions and management needs. In particular, this iteration of WGHIST will emphasize increasing the visibility and accessibility of historical data to ICES and the wider scientific community, and conducting interdisciplinary research that improves our understanding of social-ecological change through time and the impacts these changes have had, and continue to have, upon fisheries provision.

Resource requirements WGHIST will continue consultation with ICES Data Centre staff. Future Data Centre staff attendance will be an asset to WGHIST, but if this cannot be achieved in person, remote connections worked well during the previous iteration and will be leveraged. WGHIST co-chairs will also be contacting SIHD chairs to discuss their interest and ability to attend future meetings, again either in person or remotely. Any assistance ICES can provide for supporting remote access to meetings is greatly appreciated.

Participants WGHIST predicts attendance of 8-15 group members and guests each year. These will include ecologists, historians, social scientists, economists, policy experts, data analysts working in or connected to historical marine ecology. In addition, we will invite guests in contemporary management and policy, and in the social sciences, who may participate remotely.

Secretariat facilities None in 2018 or 2019. Meeting rooms and ability for participants to access the meeting at ICES HQ remotely in 2020.

Financial No financial implications.

Linkages to ACOM and groups under ACOM

WGHIST will actively seek out connections within ACOM for the application of historical ecology work into scientific advice (e.g. stock baselines, change through

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time, context for IEAs, etc).

Linkages to other committees or groups

Direct support of WKIHSD. Potential links to ACOM, EPDSG, HAPISG, IEASG, SIHD as well as WGBIODIV, WGBFAS, WGECO, WGMARS, WGMIXFISH, WGRMES, WGSAM, DIG and WGSEDA, depending on interest and availability of committee and group members to join in person or remotely.

Linkages to other organizations

There is interest for the European Commission in regards to MSFD baseline development as well as Integrated Ecosystem Assessments. Participants in the Oceans Past Initiative (OPI) will also be interested in our work and outcomes, and WGHIST will promote connections with this group. Finally, WGHIST has an international participation beyond ICES member countries, including Australia, South Africa, and Italy.

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Annex 3: Summary of presented work under ToR (c)

Prime time: Early days of English trawling in the North Sea Floris Bennema

Two rare editions of O.T. Olsen's The Fisherman's Nautical Almanac (1878 and 1885) gave the opportunity to add information on fishing grounds and fishery target species in the heydays of English sail trawling in the North Sea. In addition, the smack list in the first edition forms a rich dataset on smacks of different age and tonnage in the main UK North Sea ports.

The first edition contains 32 fishing grounds that came into use from 1814 to 1873, this 1878 text shows that half of these grounds can be classified as 'abundant in the past'. The second edition shows 25 newer fishing grounds further north along the British and continental coast or further offshore. These fishing grounds were 'abundant with fish', the two editions together illustrate sequential depletion in progress.

The description of the fishing grounds shows the strong preference for sole, turbot, brill and dory, which where 'prime fish' at the time (depicted in Figure 1). Preference for these species is also illustrated by both 1886-1902 English and 1910 Dutch fishery species statistics, they start off with sole, turbot and brill.

Ruth Thurstan (2019) showed from the 1866 inquiry and Garstang (1900) data that the landings of Grimsby smacks declined by half from 1860 to 1890. The same data show that the percentage prime fish decreased from 20% to 5% of the landings. This, in combination with the increasing high revenues of prime fish (Figure 2), is another indication of the specific depletion of this cat-egory of fish. As a response to high demands fishermen moved from these 'prime', to less valu-able fish.

Figure 2. Value realized, by four Grimsby Trawling Smacks (Garstang, 1900) in 1875 pounds (Bank of England inflation calculator).

Figure 1. Species mentioned at different fishing grounds in Olsen (1878).

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Prime Plaice

Haddock Rough

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Individual somatic growth of two habitat-sharing herring spawning ecotypes under different ecosystem conditions Henn Ojaveer1,2, Brian R. MacKenzie1, Riina Klais3, Gunta Rubene4, Heli Spilev5, Evald Ojaveer6

1 National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet Building 201, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark 2 Pärnu College, University of Tartu, Ringi 35, 80012 Pärnu, Estonia 3 EcoStat Ltd., Ladva 6, 50705 Tartu, Estonia 4 Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment, Fish Resources Research Department, Dau-gavgrivas 8, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia 5 Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, Vana-Sauga 28, 80031 Pärnu, Estonia 6 Töö str. 6, 76506 Saue, Estonia

Herring is a globally important commercial fish species, with existence of local populations adapted to regionally differing ecosystem conditions and displaying diversity in spawning times. Such adaptations and diversity can occur not only among regions, but also within regions. One such region is the Baltic Sea, where autumn and spring spawning herring ecotypes co-occur. While spring herring is currently the dominant ecotype, autumn spawners are now nearly com-mercially extirpated. Here we hypothesize that knowledge of ecotype specific growth rates, and how these have changed over the last 50–60 years, can provide new insights to the population dynamics of these two ecotypes, including responses to ecosystem variations and exploitation. We compare growth rates for the two ecotypes for two time periods to evaluate whether differ-ences occur between ecotypes and/or time periods. In general, autumn herring are larger at age than spring herring in the Baltic Sea. Comparison of contemporary (2011–2017) and historic (1958–1966) data indicated higher individual growth rate in autumn and spring spawners in the Gulf of Riga during the recent period than historically. Weight at age of younger autumn herring age groups was bigger during 2011–2017 than 1958–1966, while both ecotypes commonly exhib-ited lower weight-at-age in older age groups in the recent period. Spring and autumn herring maximum weights at age have decreased by 75% and 42% respectively. These changes are likely due to a combination of increased temperature and eutrophication, changed prey field and over-all increased density-dependent competition for prey between ecotypes. This configuration of growth conditions, in combination with ongoing bycatch of juvenile autumn herring, thermally-induced reproductive failure in autumn spawners, forecasted increases in temperature in the coming decades, and management Gulf of Riga herring as one stock is a set of circumstances which will likely maintain the current population disparity between autumn and spring spawn-ers.

Deep Sea oysters Ostrea edulis in the central North Sea Floris Bennema

Fisheries biologists in the BENTHIS group developed a scientific basis to quantify the impact of bottom trawling on the seafloor and the benthic ecosystem. One of the approaches was the study how fishing gear affects the seafloor, the other was to find tools to estimate the sensitivity of benthic communities in the North Sea. This led to the conclusion that the sensitivity of the benthic community can be estimated from the biological traits of their constituent species. Historical study on long-term changes in North Sea benthic communities opens the possibility to test these sensitivity-estimations.

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Early 20th century (1900–1906) fishery expeditions data on macrofauna are only partly disclosed and analyzed. These data sets seem to be a promising source on the North Sea benthic commu-nities in times trawling had had less impact on the sea-bed. Knowledge on this closer-to-pristine situation will deepen our knowledge on the biological bandwidth of this ecosystem thus ena-bling us to define sharper targets in natural recovery and protection projects.

At present my study concentrates on the 'deep-sea' oysters Ostrea edulis in the central North Sea. In From 1860 to 1914 an area of about 34 000 km2 was depleted of its oyster beds by English, Dutch and German fishermen. The natural impact of the disappearance of this biogenic structure is unclear yet. Based on old maps, texts and expedition data one can draw a map delineating the area in the central North Sea with a high coverage of oyster beds. Successively this delineation can be tested by the combination of data on oyster ecology and of ecological gradients in the North Sea. Study on the western border of the area continuous, data on the other borders are quite convincing.

Raising the bar for future fisheries: Integrating historical data into fisheries manage-ment to maximize yields, recovery, and ecosystem function Loren McClenachan, Colby College, Maine

This recently-initiated project is funded by the Pew Marine Fellows Program and has goals that overlap in many ways with those of WGHIST, with several opportunities for collaboration. Here I briefly describe background, progress to date, and potential for collaboration.

Background

Over the past decade, historical ecology research has revealed declines in fish biomass, fish size, and fish catch rate, so that there is a now a deep body of historical ecology research on long term change to marine fish. We also have clear evidence that a lack of historical data affects fisheries management. For example, lost knowledge about natural variability and past productivity af-fects management targets for a range of marine fisheries. There is also a broad interest among historical ecologists and others in applying historical ecology to management, and work by WGHIST has documented examples of retrospective use of historical data in management (Englehard et al. 2015). However, on the whole, it has often proven challenging to insert historical data into management. Fitting historical data into existing quantitative management frameworks can be difficult, and there is often a lack of familiarity with and receptivity to non-traditional, historical data.

This lack of integration across historical ecology and fisheries management makes sense given the relatively recent development of the field of historical ecology. As an organized field of in-quiry, historical marine ecology began in the early 2000s, and collectively, researchers first ex-plored the availability of different types of historical data that might lend insight into long-term ocean change. Considering the application of these insights to management typically occurred after data were collected and analyses were complete. However, over the last two decades the landscape has changed; there is broader awareness of the shifting baselines syndrome and need for historical perspectives in marine fisheries management. At the same time, historical marine ecologists have gained more understanding of the types of relevant information we might expect to find in historical archives.

The advancements we’ve made mean that we now have the opportunity to simultaneously ask about management opportunities and data availability. What is needed – and what is now pos-sible—is ground up partnerships that bring together fisheries scientists and historians at the start of a project to ask two questions (1) ‘What data could be integrated into established quantitative

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modeling frameworks or assessment protocols?’ And (2) ‘How can we find that data buried in historical documents created for a different purpose?’

Project goals and progress to date

This project is built on the premises that historical data are valuable in fisheries management, and that it is feasible to integrate historical data into fisheries management frameworks. Addi-tionally, it is built on the idea that ground-up partnerships are the best way to ensure that his-torical data are used in management, and that supporting the growing network of historical ecol-ogists and fisheries scientists will result in a broader use of historical data in fisheries manage-ment. Therefore, the project has three main goals: (1) Demonstrate feasibility of integrating his-torical data into fisheries management frameworks, (2) Engage with intentional collaborations and support the growing network of practitioners in order to broaden the uptake of this ap-proach, and (3) Work with the community to synthesize and disseminate information on best practices.

The first goal is being accomplished with a series of case studies that are diverse in terms of the management structure, fisheries type, and data availability. For example, one of these ongoing case studies is the Atlantic bluefin tuna. The current stock assessment for the western stock in-cludes data that begins in 1974. However, this fishery had a period of intensive development in the 1960s that pre-dates the data currently used in the stock assessment. Therefore, our partner-ship (which includes NOAA, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Colby College) worked to deter-mine key data needs from the stock assessment perspective, which were pre-1970s size infor-mation. We then also identified key sources for this information, in particular the Frank Mather collection at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. So far, compilation of these data has al-lowed us to push the data window back to the 1930s, importantly in a format useable in the stock assessment. Another ongoing case study is multi-species shark fisheries in rural Mexico, which was selected as being different from the bluefin tuna case study in several key ways.

Next steps and opportunities to collaborate

This is a project built on collaboration, and I see several avenues for partnership with members of WGHIST or the group as a whole. The first involves collaborating to identify ways to increase the likelihood of integration of historical data into fisheries management. One way that I hope to do this is through a collaboratively written “best practices” manuscript describing the ways in which historical data have been successfully integrated into management. This project takes a similar approach to some of WGHIST’s previous work; for example, Engelhard et al. (2015) ad-dressed the question “where have historical data been used in management?” This project asks the related question “How can we increase the likelihood of integrating historical data in fisher-ies management?” This manuscript will synthesize case studies, with the goal of identifying suc-cess stories, methods, opportunities, and challenges. It considers that integration exists across several scales, beginning first with the creation of effective collaboration across history, fisheries science, and management. Second, it considers integration of historical data into fisheries mod-els, and finally, integration of the results into management decisions. If you have been involved in projects or case studies that represent any of these types of integration, and have insights into variable leading to success—or lack thereof—that you would be willing to contribute, I very much welcome your collaboration on this project.

The second, related opportunity to collaborate is to identify specific opportunities for the expan-sion of this approach, with the goal of further diversifying geography, fishery type, historical data type, and management approach. In particular, the project’s goal is to identify a wide range of fisheries whose assessment could benefit from the use of historical data, for example due to a period of expansion that pre-dates existing available data. In doing so, it hopes to link these

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needs with the possibility of identifying historical data, and the opportunity for ground up col-laborations with fisheries management agencies. If you have ideas for particular fisheries that could benefit from this approach, I would very much welcome a conversation about how we might collectively move forward building in these networks.

Finally, the last opportunity to collaborate is in the form of network building and dissemination. Several efforts have been launched to communicate the value of historical data in fisheries, with a range of different audiences. Underpinning some of these efforts are groups like WGHIST, which has demonstrated that is possible to build and maintain collaborative networks of people interested in integration of fisheries and history. I welcome conversations with colleagues who have an interest in continuing the work of communication and broadening the scope of these collaborative multidisciplinary networks.

The desired impacts of this project are to institutionalize higher conservation and management targets, drawn from historical analysis to rebuild fish populations toward historical levels. Or, put more simply, more fish in the ocean and stakeholder buy-in that this is normal. Please be in touch (loren.mcclenachan@gmail.com) if you would like more information on this project or would like to collaborate toward any of these shared goals.

Long-term Trends in the Diet of Predatory Fish in the Western North Sea Georgina Hunt1; Georg Engelhard2; John Pinnegar2; Nicholas Polunin1; Ben Wigham1

1 School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK 2 Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR33 0HT, UK

Anthropogenic stressors such as trawling and eutrophication have led to widespread changes in the composition of demersal fishes and their benthic prey in the North Sea, yet relatively few studies have quantified long-term changes in diets of marine fish species. We use unique stom-ach content data spanning 1896-2015 to examine temporal patterns in the diet composition of six dominant bottom-dwelling fish species in the North Sea from north-east England to the Dogger Bank. Three of the six predators exhibited general diet shifts between historical and contempo-rary time periods. Bivalves dominated plaice, dab and haddock diet in the early and mid-20th century and declined in subsequent decades. Conversely, polychaetes increased in importance overtime and were the main prey resource for plaice in the 1970s and 2000s. These diet shifts are attributable to changes in the benthic prey base of the North Sea, linked to increased beam trawl-ing in the 1960s-1970s, eutrophication, and climatic processes. In conjunction with recent diet data, this work underpins the value of historical diet data to elucidate broad-scale and long-term in marine food webs. It further provides a benchmark for improving ecosystem status and man-agement plans for the recovery of benthic communities on continental shelves.

Breaking the Banks: representation and realities in New England fisheries, 1866–1966. Matthew McKenzie, University of Connecticut

New England fisheries scholars often identify 1905, the year the first steam trawler was launched in the region, to mark the beginning of New England’s fisheries industrialization. Analysis of late nineteenth century Gloucester vessel ownership patterns and crew nativity, as well as stud-ies of the horizontal integration and subsequent indictments of Boston’s haddock trawl vessel

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owners, however, highlight that mechanization and industrialization are not necessarily the same process.

Fishing vessel lists and memorials to lost vessels reveal two important features in Gloucester’s schooner fishery between 1866 and 1908. First, following the repeal of salt subsidies, Gloucester’s schooner fleet consolidated into fewer and fewer hands as competing firms struggled to verti-cally integrate to dominate the market. This patterns mimics closely management decisions taken by other heavy industries bucking the boom and bust economic cycles wracking the US economy throughout the period. Second, published memorials reveal a vast majority of those working on Gloucester’s schooners were not American born; another pattern consistent with other American heavy industries at the time. Canadian born fishermen made up roughly 90% of the crews work-ing aboard Gloucester vessels, while Americans made up a similar proportion of vessel owners. While still propelled by sails, and still fishing from dories, Gloucester’s fishery after 1866 was managed toward profit maximization and market domination just like many modern American industries.

As indictment records reveal, Boston’s fresh fish market actors followed similar trends, this time using total control of Boston’s single fish pier to extort kickbacks from fishing vessels seeking to sell in the city. From those illegal payments, Boston’s fish dealers amassed substantial surplus capital they then used to drive out competition, leverage lopsided from the city in the construc-tion of the Boston Fish Pier, and eventually, drive up fish prices during World War I. These profits also allowed for the construction of the first steam-powered dragger, F/V Spray, in 1905, and four more otter trawlers before the war.

In both cases, industrialization - a term historians define as a redefinition of previous relation-ships between labor, management, the productive process - and natural resources, took place without the application of machinery to that productive process. While still using old methods, Gloucester fleet owners and Boston fish dealers made decisions based upon new expectations of profitability, industrial consistency and continuity, and power over workers and captains. These new attitudes began long before mechanization, and need to be considered as such.

Relationships between public perception and industrial realities also shaped management. Fol-lowing the war, otter trawling expanded, and soon dominated the vast majority of New Eng-land’s landings. Persisting romantic popular visions of Gloucester’s schooner fishery, however, masked the industry’s industrialization and mechanization. As biologist William C. Herrington published warnings to the industry to cease targeting juvenile haddock, using declining LPUE figures to support his case, most New Englanders continued to see their fisheries as timeless, artisanal, anti-modern, and sustainable.

The disconnect between popular perception and industrial realities continue to frame the re-gion’s understanding if its fisheries. Recent fisheries disputes reveal how appeals to tradition and heritage take front stage in public responses to quota cuts, marginalizing the groundfish fisheries’ dire biological condition and overcapitalization. Such a disconnect has shaped histo-rian’s views, too, as no long term historical study yet has tackled the region’s fisheries past fol-lowing 1905.

Understanding the meaningful differences between industrialization and mechanization, as well as divergences between public perception of the fisheries and their industrial realities, represents an important filter to engage and integrate historical data into current analytical efforts. More broadly, this study highlights the need to properly understand the context from which date emerge, the debates and discourses that produced them, and the concerns of the people and ecosystems which they describe.

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What a decade of historical ecology research has revealed about the Northwestern Atlantic ecosystem Adrian Jordaan, University of Massachusetts

This provides a summary of ecological research completed over the last decade addressing changes in the northwestern Atlantic ecosystem using historical data. The primary focal area constitutes the Northeastern US States and adjacent Bay of Fundy (Canada). To do this, a variety of methods and fishery catch data from a variety of sources. For all historical data, original copies were digitally photographed and transcribed.

Habitat loss

We have detailed freshwater habitat loss due to damming degrading access between freshwater and marine ecosystems (Hall et al. 2011, 2012; Mattocks et al. 2017). European expansion starting in the 1600s brought mills and increased populations throughout coastal areas and inland, and in a period from 1750–1850 a fundamental re-scaling of suitable habitat for anadromous fish. Increasing numbers of dams also leads to other landscape changes including de-forestation, however forests have returned to the New England landscape (Foster et al. 2002) while freshwa-ter systems remain highly fragmented and provide limited access to habitat for anadromous fish. In addition, a number of species losses (Foster et al. 2002; Lotze and Milewski 2004) has altered the ecological interactions with unknown consequences.

Marine catch and export trends

The earliest available fishery time series spans 1804–1893 collected Massachusetts and Maine Fish Inspector reports, followed by U.S. Fish Commissioner Reports annual landings in Maine and Massachusetts by gear type in after 1886. The Massachusetts General Court required inspec-tors to send written reports to the Secretary of State detailing fish inspected each year. Massa-chusetts and Maine Fish Inspector reports provide fisheries export data as a proxy for fish har-vested from the Gulf of Maine during the 19th century. These records indicate rapid shifts from nearshore/riverine to offshore fisheries precipitated by climatic impacts of the little ice age and Tambora volcanic eruption and gear innovation (Alexander et al. 2017) and reduction in the ge-ographic extent of anadromous fish export (Hall et al. 2011). All this work support the habitat-based analyses that demonstrate loss of particularly smaller anadromous fish including river herring and American shad.

Catch records, observed in weirs

Inshore catch defined as river-based seines and coastal pound nets, seines, and weirs, and off-shore catch used vessels to deploy gear, primarily purse seines. Coastal weirs and other fixed nets are treated as better proxies for fish population size since “effort”, particularly the motori-zation of vessel power and fishing equipment, is not directly involved in fish capture. Weirs have been declining as a proportion of the catch for decades, thus less effort is being in the contempo-rary period. Regardless, the data suggest a contraction in the number of species caught and par-ticularly of smaller “forage fish” such as Atlantic herring, river herring and American shad (Ta-ble 1). Menhaden have been demonstrated to be partially restricted from the Gulf of Maine re-gion due to the loss of larger higher swimming capacity individuals (Jordaan et al. In Review). Current confidentiality regulations limit a deeper analysis of this data with consideration of finer scale spatial scales and filled data gaps.

Ecosystem change

Ecosystem changes are documented in the section of Dias (this volume). The purpose of ecosys-tem models is to translate long-term changes in abundances of anadromous fish to an ecosystem impact, and eventually into potential fisheries landings, as to provide estimates of lost ecosystem

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services. Time-series and empirical dynamic modeling approaches can also provide a compari-son of contemporary and historical data. The Bay of Fundy produced a number of fisheries time-series of landings that demonstrated nonlinearity existed in prior fisheries mechanization prop-erty of ecosystems (Klein et al. 2016). A reduction in deterministic dynamics post industrializa-tion suggests fisheries population models may become less predictive in exploited populations (Klein et al. 2016).

Conclusions

There has been a century long degradation and lost connectivity among what are considered distinct ecosystems through biologically-mediated (age/size truncation, species loss) and habitat-mediated (damming) mechanisms. Fish catches are less predictable now, consistent with smaller populations, but this change is reducing access to reliable fisheries for coastal communities and leaving managers with less predictive capacity in stock assessments. Ultimately, it will be im-portant to recognize historical changes and avoid depending on 1950 baselines for management, in either expected yield or special extent of species presence, as historical data suggests signifi-cant changes prior to this date. In exploited and degraded systems, shifts in climate can stimulate rapid changes in human-nature interactions such as fisheries, since smaller populations are likely to fluctuate more under environmental forcing and with fisheries targeting smaller age/size de-mographic also depend on recruitment-based production.

Management actions effect adjacent ecosystems, with landscape changes affecting coastal eco-systems through the loss of forage species and limiting migrations. Ecosystems have become fragmented, which has resulted in less productive coastal seas It appears that FECO, the fishing mortality rate to support ecosystem functioning, will be a significantly lower value than FMSY, the fishing mortality that supports maximized yield. Important links between ecosystems should be considered for effective cross-boundary (ecosystem-based) management. These changes would require adjustments to the current management framework and models that provide the basis for decision-making.

References

Alexander, K.E., T.V. Willis, W.B. Leavenworth, C. Hall, S. Mattocks, S.M. Bittner, E. Klein, M. Staudinger, A. Bryan, J. Rosset, B.H. Carr and A. Jordaan. 2017. Tambora and the mackerel year: phenology and fisheries during an extreme climate event. Science Advances 3:e1601635.

Foster, D.R., G. Motzkin, D. Bernardos, and J. Cardoza. 2002. Wildlife dynamics in the changing New Eng-land landscape. Journal of Biogeography, 29(10-11), pp.1337-1357.

Hall, C.J., A. Jordaan and M.G. Frisk. 2011. The historical influence of dams on diadromous fish habitat with a focus on river herring and hydrologic longitudinal connectivity. Landscape Ecology 26(1): 95-107.

Hall, C.J., A. Jordaan and M.G. Frisk. 2012. Centuries of anadromous forage fish loss: consequences for ecosystem connectivity and productivity. Bioscience 62(8): 723-731.

Jordaan, A., B.S. Dias, A. Davis, K.E. Alexander and W.B. Leavenworth. In Review. Biologically mediated fragmentation of marine ecosystems.

Klein, E.S., S. M. Glaser, A. Jordaan, L. Kaufman, L. and A.A. Rosenberg. 2016. A complex past: Historical and contemporary fisheries demonstrate nonlinear dynamics and a loss of determinism. Marine Ecol-ogy Progress Series 557: 237-246.

Lotze H.K. and Milewski I. 2004. Two centuries of multiple human impacts and successive changes in a North Atlantic food web. Ecological Applications 14:1428-1447

Mattocks, S., C.J. Hall and A. Jordaan. 2017. Damming, lost connectivity and the historical role of anadro-mous fish in freshwater ecosystem dynamics. BioScience 67(8): 713-728.

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Decades to millennia of marine ecosystem change Bryony Caswell, University of Hull

My ongoing research describing changes in marine benthic systems over decadal and millennial timescales considers how long-term anthropogenic impacts including nutrient enrichment and deoxygenation affects the structure and functioning of the marine benthos. This work employs monitoring data collected in the UK by water companies in the 1980s–2000 (Caswell et al. 2018), and assess present-day measurements of ecosystem health using uses millennial scale data (Caswell et al., under revision). It provides information on how and over what timescales these changes will impact the delivery of ecosystem services, including fisheries, under future climate scenarios and anthropogenic nutrient enrichment. Specifically, aligns with ToR(c) by evaluating changes in ecological systems through time.

My present and future research will explore the use exceptionally preserved ancient communi-ties to ask: what was the structure of past marine communities and ecosystems? What is the true scale of natural variability? And, can this data inform the current baselines of ecosystem health? Fossil assemblages have the potential to show whether our indices for ecosystem health are de-scribing the full and relevant range of natural ecosystem states. This is crucial because these in-dices underpin our assessments and understanding of the resilience of ecosystems and their abil-ity to continue to deliver many of the ecological functions and ecosystem services upon which society depends. This work may inform ToR(c) by evaluating change in marine ecosystems through time and demonstrating the importance of historical (and palaeontological) data for contemporary science and management. It may also contribute to ToR(d) by continuing to use non-traditional data sources and approaches to advance our knowledge of ecosystem change and dynamics.

References

Caswell, B. A., Paine, M., Frid, C. L. J. 2018. Impacts of two decades of organic enrichment and deoxygena-tion on seafloor animals. Marine Pollution Bulletin 136, 212-229.

Caswell, B. A., Frid, C. L. J., Borja, A. Under Revision for Marine Pollution Bulletin. An ecological status indicator for all time: Are AMBI and M-AMBI effective indicators of change in deep time?

Multidecadal dynamics of the Arctic copepod Limnocalanus macrurus in relation to the environmental variability in the Baltic Sea Heli Einberg1, Riina Klais2, Gunta Rubene3 Georgs Kornilovs3, Ivars Putnis3 and Henn Ojaveer1

1 Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, Lootsi 2a, 80012 Pärnu, Estonia 2 EcoStat Ltd., Ladva 6, 50705 Tartu, Estonia 3 Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment, Fish Resources Research Department, Dau-gavgrivas 8, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia

The Arctic Limnocalanus macrurus is a prominent representative of large copepods which per-forms several essential functions in both freshwater and marine pelagic ecosystems. Being a cold stenotherm species, its distribution is primarily confined to deeper water layers. The species is considered as a glacial relict in the Baltic Sea, being the largest widely distributed copepod spe-cies (up to 3mm in length) in its northern part - Gulf of Bothnia, Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Riga. All these basins are characterised by relatively harsh climate conditions in winter and relatively low salinity, hosting therefore several glacial relicts. However, the ecology of L. macrurus in the Baltic Sea is very poorly documented.

In this study, we were aiming to: i) establish multidecadal abundance dynamics of L. macrurus and associated environmental and biological factors in the Gulf of Riga (Baltic Sea) that have

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been previously suggested to influence population size of this copepod species; ii) identify the key environmental variables potentially affecting L. macrurus abundance dynamics and the na-ture and size of the effect; iii) look for the evidence of non-stationary links between the key en-vironmental variables and interannual abundance variability of L. macrurus, and iv) investigate the non-linear interactions between the explanatory variables to shape the interannual abun-dance dynamics of L. macrurus.

Data of L. macrurus abundances, derived from the database of the Institute of Food Safety, Ani-mal Health and Environment, BIOR, were obtained from seven stations in the Gulf of Riga (Fig-ure 1), covering time period between 1958 and 2016.

The preliminary results indicate that:

• Abundance of L. macrurus has displayed profound long-term pattern since the late 1950s: very high abundances before the 1980s, then nearly disappearance in the 1990s and re-covery in the 2000;

• The main environmental parameters explaining the interannual variability in abundance of L. macrurus in May were (in the declining order of importance) last year’s herring spawner biomass (SSB), winter severity and water temperature last August;

• Abundance of L. macrurus consistently declined on the gradient of increase of herring SSB, while only mildest winters appeared to have negative effect on L. macrurus;

• Non-stationary relationships exist between the main environmental parametres and the abundance of L. macrurus, with shifs between statistically significant and non-significant temporal relationships (at 15-years long temporal subsets based on sliding window cor-relation analysis).

Converting anecdotes into quantitative data: Newspaper archives and fisher per-spectives can improve assessments for fish stocks Sarah Buckley1, Ruth Thurstan2, Michael O’Neill3, John Pandolfi4

1Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, Ireland 2University of Exeter, UK 3Agri-Science Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Australia 4University of Queensland, Australia

We investigated the possibility of converting fisher perceptions into quantitative estimates of catch rates and fishery changes over time. Second, we looked at the possibility and effect of in-corporating fisher estimates into stock assessments. We used the East Coast Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) as a case study. The fishery commenced many decades prior to monitoring and formal data recordings of the fishery, meaning that data for informing the stock assessment is lacking. 221 Spanish mackerel fishers of the commercial and recreational sectors along the East Coast of Australia were interviewed about their memories of change in the fishery during their careers and experience of fishing. Fishers’ memories generated data on catch rate trends, gear and technological innovations, social and regulatory changes spanning the past seven decades for both the commercial and recreational fisheries. Long-term quantitative esti-mates of standardized catch rate, spatial expansion, fishing power, fleet size, fisher population characteristics and responses in fisher behaviour to management were produced from fisher per-ceptions. Mean fishing power increased for both commercial and for recreational sectors between 1940 and 2013. During the same period, a significant decrease was observed in standardized catch rates, which accounted for fishing power, fishing effort and spatio-temporal data structure for both commercial and recreational fisheries. Our subsequent investigation into variations in

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catch rate revealed significant differences between regions and seasons in both sectors, congru-ent with the observed differences in fleet size of commercial and recreational fisheries. Similar perceptions of the impact of and adaptations to governance changes between the commercial and recreational sectors were evident. Possible recall bias was examined by comparing fishers’ recollections of catches with recorded catch to verify the accuracy of fisher recollections. The recollections of catches remained within the distribution of recorded catch.

Various types of data sources available were evaluated and it was deciphered that the data from both newspaper archives and fisher recollections were reliable sources of data to be incorporated into the latest stock assessment. Our research on newspaper archives provided information on occasional estimates of total landings of Spanish mackerel per annum in the early period of the fishery and the year the fishery commenced. Fishers’ perceptions provided mean decadal catch rates of Spanish mackerel and standard errors (no fishing power adjustments), and; annual up-take rates of fishing gear technology and gear effects to allow calculation of changes in annual fishing power. The fishing power adjustments standardized catch rates for the contemporary period for both the commercial and recreational sectors of the fishery. The information filled knowledge gaps on past trends, which was important for analysing changes in the fishery. The historical information on fishing power and catch rates were important data input into the stock assessment. The influence of the historical information on stock assessment was evaluated by comparing results ‘with’ and ‘without’ the data. This aspect of the stock assessment was a clear difference to the previous assessment. Use of the historical data was shown to be beneficial to map early trends in the fishery. The assessment combined the data in an annual age-structured population model tailored for the biology and management history of Spanish mackerel. Popu-lation modelling of the data estimated that Spanish mackerel population size in 2016 was be-tween 30–50% of original biomass estimated at the start of the fishery in 1911 (best estimate around 40% biomass). The annual harvests in the last decade were similar to the recommended sustainable levels of 400–800 tonnes, but there was no evidence to suggest any building of pop-ulation size or improving catch rates. Measures of fishing pressure were above the level required to build higher fish population size such as 50–60% biomass. The results suggest annual harvests of around 550 tonnes (across all sectors) will build the biomass towards the 60% for better eco-nomic yield and quality of fishing (higher catch rates), then fishing pressure will need to reduce for a period of time to build the fish population to a higher biomass.

References

O'Neill, M.F., Langstreth, J., Buckley, S.M. and Stewart, J. (2018) Stock assessment of Australian east coast Spanish mackerel: Predictions of stock status and reference points. Technical Report. State of Queens-land.

Buckley SB, Thurstan RH, O’Neill MF and Pandolfi JM. Converting anecdotes into quantitative data: News-paper archives and fisher perspectives can improve assessments for fish stocks. In prep for Fish and Fisheries.

Incorporating historical baselines to test management strategies for anadromous forage fish Beatriz Dias1,2 and Adrian Jordaan1

1University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Environmental Conservation, 2CAPES Foundation, Brazil.

Small pelagics or forage fish are critical links between lower and high trophic levels in marine food webs. Recently more attention has been paid to the management of forage fish, including anadromous river herring (Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus, blueback herring A. aestivalis) and

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American shad (A. sapidissima) due to their status and historically significant role. However, little is known about the impact of biomass loss of small anadromous species on marine food webs, nor the implications of their recovery. Fisheries policies were implemented to protected anadromous forage fish, which made them notorious choking species in Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), and mackerel (Scomber scombrus). In addition, changes in habitat connectivity, by dam removal and implementation of fish passages, are taking place throughout Northern New England watersheds, USA. We used Ecopath with Ecosim simulation tool to analyze manage-ment strategies that focused on anadromous forage fish, using historical data on river to ocean connectivity, in addition to different levels of fishing effort. We ran our simulation on a one-hundred-year span, accounting for the impact of bycatch in Atlantic herring fisheries and virtu-ally increased connectivity as two means of promoting recovery. Our preliminary results show that several upper-trophic species benefited from the increase of anadromous alosine biomass. The combined landscape-driven biomass and changes on fishing effort were responsible for an order of magnitude changes of biomass for mid- and upper-trophic level species. We recommend the use of historical data to understand marine ecosystem dynamics and to track the ecosystem responses to historical baselines. As we progress, we aim to explore historical baselines from different focus (e.g., habitat connectivity, productivity, and fisheries) to draw the best ap-proaches to recover anadromous forage fish to its former ecological prominence.

Historical ecology, local ecological knowledge, western science and public policies: the eel case (Anguilla anguilla). Anatole Danto, CNRS, Université de Rennes 1, IEP de Rennes, UMR 6051 ARENES & RTPi ApoliMer, UMR 7372 CEBC, Brest, France.

This research project focused on the European eel (Anguilla anguilla), which is in critical danger of extinction (Annex 3 of CITES). Based on an inventory of fishermen's local ecological knowledge by ethnographical field survey (semi-directive interviews, life story), and on histori-cal ecological work (private and public archives of institution of management, of fishermen and of scientist and local naturalist), conducted on the presence/absence and life and seasonal cycles of eels. The social-ecological system is the end of the Loire River basin, between Angers and the Atlantic Ocean. It observes how this knowledge is or is not taken into account in scientific studies and management measures.

Materials, sources and data on marine environment and fisheries: some research opportunities from national to local (France / Bretagne / Brest) Anatole Danto, CNRS, Université de Rennes 1, IEP de Rennes, UMR 6051 ARENES & RTPi ApoliMer, UMR 7372 CEBC, Brest, France.

This presentation is a methodological conference on the structuring of archives dedicated to ma-rine sciences in France, in the broad sense, and to specialized libraries. It presents the research tools available to researchers, as well as the various sources, materials and collections open to consultation, in their diversity.

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The story of the early extirpation of the Bramble shark (Echinorhinus brucus, Echino-rhinidae) exhumed by an integrative historical ecology approach Samuel P. Iglésias1 & Frederik H. Mollen2

1Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité (UMR 7205), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE, Sorbonne Universités; Station de Biologie Marine, Place de la Croix, 29900 Concarneau, France. [iglesias@mnhn.fr]

2Elasmobranch Research, Rehaegenstraat 4, 2820 Bonheiden, Belgium. [frederik.mollen@gmail.com]

Because the sea is not transparent as the sky is, we cannot count the fishes as we count the birds, and disappearance of a fish species can pass totally unnoticed. Marine biodiversity is suffering of an acceleration of the erosion process caused by overexploitation, and large sharks are among the worst affected by defaunation due to their life history characteristics. In European waters the singular Bramble shark (Echinorhinus brucus, Echinorhinidae) was suspected to be threatened but lack of population trend prevents its assessment; consequently the species is currently un-regulated and listed ‘Data Deficient’ by IUCN. The newly ‘integrative approach’ promoted by Historical Marine Ecology shows extraordinary power to highlight past species-collapse unno-ticed by modern fishery surveys. An exhaustive research, including modern digital tools, per-meated to exhume over 300 historical Atlantic records of Bramble shark individuals, mostly over-looked by science. The semi-quantitative treatment of these qualitative data for over three cen-turies’ evidences this ground shark was commonly exploited in European waters for food and lighting oil. Its significant collapse early in the 20th century is highly correlated with the advent of steamers and dramatic growth of fishery performances in the 1880s. It appears the species was locally common up to the late 19th century; presenting bathymetric seasonality with an evi-denced estuarine affinity. Our results demonstrate the early disappearance of such a large and charismatic species can go totally unnoticed. We consider the Bramble shark is currently extir-pated for decades from most European countries. Only rare individuals may now be still present in restricted areas. The Atlantic E. brucus is evidenced to be critically endangered and fishery regulation will probably not avoid its total extinction without additional determined policy en-dorsing strong spatial protection measures.

Historical emergence of fishing technologies Jonas Hentati Sundberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

The effect of increasing efficiency from technological innovations in fisheries is well known. Clas-sic examples include the onset of bottom trawling, the use of advanced fish finding equipment and mechanized onboard processing facilities on fishing vessels. A comprehensive overview of technological innovations in fisheries have however been lacking. The work presented here out-lines a general framework for identifying and analysing historical introductions of new technol-ogies in fisheries. By using fishing industry magazines and historical book searches, a timeline of technology introductions is established, which can later be linked to quantify changes in his-torical fishing effort.

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Revising fundamental ecological theories in light of technological and conceptual ad-vances J. Coston-Guarini, Entangled Bank Laboratory

My research topics are inspired by two related questions: 1. how can we use documentary and biological archives to reconstruct past ecological trends of marine systems and, 2. how what we learn from reconstructing past social-economic-ecological conditions could be used to improve the evaluation of environmental impact today. This allows me to explore and revise fundamental theories of ecology in light of new technological and conceptual advances.

At the meeting I presented part of my work on modelling the 3D morphodynamics of molluscan shell growth which I also just proposed to the ERC Starting Grant program in October 2018. The aim is to compare 3D morphometrics (surface scans) of actual specimens with the neutral shell shapes generated in silico by morphodynamic models to develop a new understanding of growth responses at the individual-level. It could revise the laws of morphodynamics and biol-ogy as they were proposed by D’Arcy Thompson (and earlier workers), by proposing a new approach to reconciling the geometric principle of shell growth with constraints imposed by the environmental and biological conditions of the individual organism. This then suggests a new means to synthesize fundamental ideas about variability, growth and form at the core of biology, evolution and ecology.

Concerning the second theme, I have a new collaboration with historian and Marie-Curie Indi-vidual Fellowship Laureat Michael Serruys to examine how the socio-economic crises triggered by shipworm infestations in 18th century Europe altered the historical trajectories of different countries at that time. We will not only attempt to reconstruct the history of the infestation from documentary and museological collections, but also re-create the effects of a shipworm infesta-tion on the navigability of ship hulls using models.

And, finally, I am involved in several projects on the behavioural ecology of benthic inverte-brates, concerned with passive bioacoustics, acclerometry and valvometry, and their use as methods of detecting high frequency individual responses to environmental change, in situ. These projects re-examine the precepts of Tinbergen from an operational point of view, and with the idea of renewing the theoretical foundations of individual-based and sensorial ecology.

Voices from the Fisheries Molly Graham, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA

The Voices from the Fisheries Oral History database is a central repository for consolidating, archiving, and disseminating oral history interviews related to commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing in the United States and its territories. The program seeks to document the human experience of our marine, coastal, and Great Lakes environments. The database contains recordings and transcripts of eyewitness accounts from fishermen, their spouses, processing workers, shoreside business workers, scientists, marine resources managers, and others. These stories expand our knowledge and enrich our understanding of the nation's fisheries and their impacts. We work with prospective oral history practitioners to add interviews to our growing digital repository and the public to use and interact with our content for educational and research purposes. To this end, Voices offers workshops and trainings to teach the basics of how to de-sign, conduct and disseminate life course oral histories. Additionally, we consult on project de-sign, digitization, collection assessment and more. The Voices from the Fisheries database is a powerful resource available to the public to inform, educate, and provide primary information

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for researchers interested in our local, human experience with the surrounding marine environ-ment. For more information, contact the program manager, Molly Graham at voices@noaa.gov.

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Annex 4: Summary of resources and methods under ToR(d)

WGHIST members represent a range of disciplines, and many work with sources and ap-proaches not traditionally used in marine or fisheries science. ToR (d) aimed to highlight the non-traditional tools and methods that members use to examine past ecosystems and socio-eco-logical trends over time. These descriptions may prove useful for other researchers, including those working with contemporary data and especially in data-poor systems. Here, we provide a summary of several non-traditional data sources and approaches they had recently used or were currently using (refer to Annex 3 for more information).

In terms of information, Hentati-Sundberg et al. are using industry magazines to explore the timing of different technology introductions to the commercial fishing community. Buckley et al. used fisher interviews and newspapers to determine changes in catch rate, fishing effort and fishing locations of Spanish mackerel, which have now been incorporated into stock assessment. Iglesias digitised international archives to find historical articles describing catches of bramble shark. He and colleagues used these alongside other non-traditional sources, such as historical popular media and photographs. Coston-Guarini is commencing a project examining how ship-worm infestations in 18th century Europe altered the historical trajectories of different countries at that time, using documentary and museological collections, as well as modelling the effects of shipworm infestation on the navigability of ship hulls. Graham spoke to the group about an on-going NOAA project, Voices of the Fisheries, which is collating and archiving oral histories from people involved in United States fisheries. This archive houses ever-growing sources of infor-mation that have the potential to be accessed and analysed by researchers.

WGHIST members are also applying new methods and analytical approaches. Coston-Guarini discussed her work comparing 3D morphometrics (surface scans) of mollusc specimens with the neutral shell shapes generated in silico by morphodynamic models, to develop a new under-standing of growth responses at the individual-level. The ultimate aim of this research is to sug-gest new ways to synthesize fundamental ideas about variability, growth and form, ideas which have not been revised since the early 20th century. Ojaveer et al. employed empirical dynamic modeling to uncover dynamics and understanding not possible with traditional approaches for time series data.

Additional sources of data were also highlighted to the group during trips to local and regional archives and libraries. For example, the Marine Station de Concarneau houses archival texts of naturalists and past scientists of the station, as well as an extensive ichthyology collection. The Service Historique de la Defence holds centuries of government maritime archives, while the Les Ateliers des Capucins and L’Agence Française de la Biodiversité at Brest both host impressive collections of historical texts on natural history and fisheries, as well as historical information about the growth of marine science in France and Europe over time.

These works emphasise the broad range of interests and expertise available through WGHIST members. In addition to this ongoing research, there is an increasing global body of research examining the utility of neglected or unconventional data sources in natural resource manage-ment. These sources have great potential to provide additional insight alongside traditional data, encourage interdisciplinary work, and deepen understanding in data poor or limited systems.