Evaluating ecosystem caps on fishery yield in the context of climate stress and predation

Ecosystem-based fisheries management strives to account for species interactions and ecosystem processes in natural resource management and conservation. In this context, ecosystem-wide caps on total fishery catches have been proposed as one tool to manage multispecies fisheries with an ecosystem approach. However, determining effective ecosystem caps is complicated because fish stock production is influenced by environmental conditions, species interactions, and fishing. Consequently, the implementation of ecosystem caps in fisheries management frameworks remains uncommon. We investigated whether ecosystem caps should account for climate variability and for predator-prey dynamics to achieve management objectives in complex marine ecosystems. We considered the example of the Gulf of Alaska (United States), a North Pacific large marine ecosystem where annual groundfish catches are managed using an "optimum yield" ecosystem cap of 800,000 t. We simulated multispecies yield of the 12 most abundant and commercially valuable groundfish stocks under selected climate and fishing scenarios using an end-to-end marine ecosystem model (Atlantis), which accounts for predator-prey and ecosystem dynamics. We found that total groundfish yield was never projected to exceed the 800,000 mt optimum yield cap across scenarios and fishing mortalities. Projected climate change led to decreased groundfish yield, and predation from the underexploited groundfish predator arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) led to foregone catches. Groundfish removals had negative indirect effects on groundfish predators, despite total yield never exceeding the optimum yield cap, highlighting that an ineffective cap may not protect non-target species. These results suggest that the optimum yield cap currently used in the Gulf of Alaska may be too high to constrain groundfish catches under future climate change and low exploitation rates of predators. We propose that ecosystem caps should be reviewed when environmental conditions, stock productivity, or species interactions change.