More than anecdotes: Fishers' ecological knowledge can fill gaps for ecosystem modeling

Abstract

Background: Ecosystem modeling applied to fisheries remains hampered by a lack of local information. Fishers' knowledge could fill this gap, improving participation in and the management of fisheries. Methodology: The same fishing area was modeled using two approaches: based on fishers' knowledge and based on scientific information. For the former, the data was collected by interviews through the Delphi methodology, and for the latter, the data was gathered from the literature. Agreement between the attributes generated by the fishers' knowledge model and scientific model is discussed and explored, aiming to improve data availability, the ecosystem model, and fisheries management. Principal Findings: The ecosystem attributes produced from the fishers' knowledge model were consistent with the ecosystem attributes produced by the scientific model, and elaborated using only the scientific data from literature. Conclusions/Significance: This study provides evidence that fishers' knowledge may suitably complement scientific data, and may improve the modeling tools for the research and management of fisheries.