The c halleng es of modelling and assessing fisheries resources

Abstract

Man y y ears after the publication of B e v erton and Holt's on the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations in 1957, many of the problems that they highlighted remain unsolved. For example, accurately estimating critical biological and fishing processes such as growth, natural mort alit y, recruit- ment, and selectivity continues to be challenging. Despite the lack of progress in some areas, there ha v e been adv ances in our understanding of other areas of fisheries modelling and analysis, including the development of integrative studies of marine resources for the application of an ecosystem-based fisheries management. In this conte xt, ICES J ournal of Marine Science solicited contributions to the themed article set (TS) "A dv ances and challenges in the modelling and assessment of fishery resources ". Here, we summarize the contributions included in this TS that provide examples of emerging tools that are able to account for different issues of a stocks' assessments and integrated analyses.