Desirability of a standard notation for fisheries assessment

Abstract

The worldwide increase of the publications concerning the assessment of marine renewable living resources is highlighting long-standing problems with symbols and annotations. Starting from the symbols presented within the classic fisheries masterpieces produced, mainly in the fifty of the last century, a first "Milestone" list was organised. Thereafter, the pertinent literature was (not exhaustively) browsed in order to integrate this Milestone list on the basis of a set of decisional criteria. The present contribution consists in using the Latin letters, as well as established symbols for the corresponding parameters, leaving free to specific use (with few historical exceptions) of the Greek letters in view to open a discussion, and a scheme of symbols usage was proposed among all the fisheries scientists and bodies in order to move towards a common language and better communication standards.