Life Sciences Commons^™

Collaborative And Engaged Research To Strengthen Equity And Adaptive Governance In Co-Managed Fisheries, Gabrielle V. Hillyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small-scale, co-managed fisheries are found throughout the world and often represent intertwining cultures, societies, communities, economies, institutions, and governments. They face complex issues, derived from ecological and social sources. Solving these issues requires diverse expertise, often developed through engaged methodologies which can facilitate collaborative solution creation between researchers, community members, and others. In this dissertation, I demonstrate the benefits of these engaged methodologies and review how they, when coupled with anticolonial approaches to research, can create more equitable solutions to complex issues. This dissertation focuses on multiple projects within the wild clam fishery in Maine including: (1) the creation of …

Genetic Effects Of Anthropogenic Disturbance On Native Charrs, Brad Erdman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Artificial propagation has been utilized for over a century to offset anthropogenic declines of abundance for many fishes. Complex and poorly documented histories of habitat degradation and stockings have resulted in considerable uncertainty regarding whether contemporary populations are of native, hatchery, or mixed origins. This uncertainty is problematic as it precludes prioritizing the conservation of native populations that are postulated to possess local adaptations and greater evolutionary potential. Population genetics can assess the relative reproductive contributions of previous stocking events and in this dissertation I apply these methods to four empirical studies of native charr (genus Salvelinus) that have …

Why Is The Depletion Of Our Important Fish Stocks So Persistent?, James A. Wilson

Maine Policy Review

In the 1980s and 1990s, two events changed the fundamental structure of Maine's coastal ecology: inshore herring and then nearshore groundfish stocks were overfished and disappeared. Surprisingly, even without fishing, there has been no recovery. Standard fisheries management assumes that the recovery of any locally overfished place should be quick – fish from other places will 'fill in.'

In contrast, recent scientific work on social learning among animals suggests that fish have communication and learning abilities comparable to other vertebrates. Learning allows groups of fish to adapt to much more local places than possible if adaptation depended on genetics alone. …

Age, Growth, Foraging, And Trophic Ecology Of Bigeye (Thunnus Obesus) And Yellowfin (Thunnus Albacares) Tuna In Continental Shelf And Slope Regions Of The Northeast U.S., Riley S. Austin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional stock assessments require, in part, accurate knowledge of growth relationships to estimate a variety of aspects involved in population conservation management of exploited species. In addition, the local distribution and condition of top pelagic predators is driven by detection of abundant forage aggregations and along with traditional stock assessments, should be considered for effective management of marine populations. Empirical analyses of these data are severely lacking for bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) tuna in the Atlantic Ocean, especially for the former. Given historical studies’ observations of these two top predators use as biological samplers due to their …

Linking Local Knowledge & Community Science In Support Of Coastal Marine Stewardship, Sarah Risley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the last two decades, there has been a shift towards more integrated, ecosystem-based approaches to marine management, including fisheries. At the same time, there have been calls for greater inclusion of diverse perspectives in conservation science and practice. For these reasons, there is renewed interest in the integration of indigenous and local knowledge into science, management, and environmental decision making. Despite these developments, local knowledge often is poorly integrated or treated as something of lesser value than knowledge generated or curated by professional researchers. Novel methods that integrate social and ecological data and prioritize local knowledge and community-based approaches …

Examining The Northern Shrimp Fishery In A Changing Gulf Of Maine, Ashley N. Charleson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Northern Shrimp (Pandalus borealis) once supported a key commercial fishery in the State of Maine. Since its closure in 2013, the stock has remained in a particularly vulnerable state following recruitment failure, overfishing, and rising water temperatures. Furthermore, without this source of supplemental income, local fishermen have also experienced financial stress following unstable fishing conditions in other fisheries. The collective goal of this research project was to assess factors impacting the feasibility of reopening and maintaining this vulnerable winter fishery. These goals are addressed over 4 chapters. Chapter two offers insight regarding what is most often omitted from the regulatory …

Managing Resilience In A Changing World: A Multiscale Analysis Of Fisheries Governance Challenges, Marina Cucuzza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fisheries are complex social-ecological systems comprised of fish, humans, the institutions they create, and the broader ecological and social systems within which they are embedded. Changing ocean conditions, declines and shifts in key species, and loss of working waterfront infrastructure are among the many threats to the longevity of fisheries and fishing communities worldwide. A resilience approach to fisheries governance is increasingly recognized as key to sustaining coastal systems and the human communities that depend on them in the face of mounting socioeconomic and environmental challenges. Here I define resilience as the capacity of a system to withstand disturbances without …

Comparing Independent Approaches To Estimate Age At Size Of The Jonah Crab (Cancer Borealis): Corroborating Gastric Mill Band Counts As A Direct Aging Method, Carlton Huntsberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Knowing the age of an organism is essential in understanding the dynamics and management of wild populations. Age determination has been an especially long-standing challenge in the study of crustaceans, since they posed a unique challenge, shedding all calcified structures with each molt. The Jonah crab (Cancer borealis), is one of many commercially harvested crustaceans for which no absolute aging method has yet been established. It is an ecologically important species and a newly managed fishery in New England and Atlantic Canada. The recent increase of commercial fisheries for this species has highlighted the large data gap of …

Developing A Collaborative Research Program To Evaluate Fine-Scale Groundfish Dynamics In Eastern Maine, Mattie Rodrigue

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fisheries science conducted and used for management strategies in the Gulf of Maine (GOM) is conducted at broad spatial and temporal scales. There is a tendency for fisheries-independent monitoring programs, which play a critical role in fisheries assessment and management, to miss fine-scale dynamics, especially given the complex hydrographic structures characterizing the GOM. In New England, fishermen participating in a heterogeneous groundfish fishery within the GOM may have varied perceptions of fish abundance or distribution depending on the scale at which they participate in the fishery. Overlooking fine-scale life-history dynamics coupled with scale-mismatch in science and management may perpetuate a …

Age Structure Response Of Principal Groundfish To Marine Protected Areas In New England, Julian Chawarski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinnus) were once dominant species in the New England fisheries economy, together accounting for over half of the landings value of groundfish. Over the last several decades, all three species have experienced dramatic shifts in spawning stock biomass (SSB) with current estimates for cod stocks at 3% and 7% of target biomass (Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank stocks, respectively), a strong contrast to haddock stocks that are nearly fully recovered (NEFSC 2014, 2017). As principally demersal species, they are easily targeted by …

An Ocean Venture, Mattie Rodrigue

The Catch

No abstract provided.

Spatial Dynamics In Fisheries Stock Assessment, Yong Chen

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Most fisheries stock assessments assume that the spatial distribution of fish and/or fishing effort is random (Hilborn and Walters 1992), even though this is rarely the case (Paloheimo and Dickie 1964, Caddy 1975, Hilborn and Walters 1992, Tilzey 1994, Hutchings 1996, Chen et al. 1998, Hart 2001). The target stock is often aggregated and the distribution of fishing effort reflects this spatial pattern, along with other factors such as management restrictions, distance to port, vessel size, and the experience and habits of individual fishers. This often results in high spatial variation in fishing effort and mortality.

Ignoring this spatial variation …

Socio-Cultural And Economic Barriers To Small Vessel/Indigenous Participation In The American Samoan Longline Fishery, Theodore Koboski

Honors College

American Samoans have been harvesting pelagic fish since the islands were settled some 3,500 years ago. Longline fishing, in which miles of line containing baited hooks are set and then retrieved after approximately 24 hours, is a relatively recent fishing method in the Territory. Today it accounts for nearly all pelagic landings and is a multi-million dollar industry. Most participants in the longline fishery were indigenous American Samoans fishing out of small, locally built catamarans called alias. Over the past decade, however, the fishery has seen a massive increase in the number of larger foreign monohull vessels while small vessel/indigenous …

Collaborative Research: Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: End-To-End Energy Budgets In Us-Globec Regions, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The research addresses the overarching question: are marine food webs leading to fisheries controlled from the top-down, the bottom up, or a combination of the two? To address this question we will (1) compare end-to-end energy budgets of the 4 US-GLOBEC study regions in the context of top-down v. bottom-up forcing, (2) assess the skills of the regional models in capturing basic material fluxes, (3) extract diagnostics from the regional models that will be used to evaluate the effects of climate change and fishing pressure across GLOBEC regions and (4) develop quantitative methods to compare the diagnostics. The major successes …

The Canning Plant, Robert Froese

The Catch

A couple explores a defunct sardine cannery.

The Cost Of Useful Knowledge And Collective Action In Three Fisheries, James A. Wilson, James M. Acheson, Teresa Johnson

James Wilson

In a complex environment knowledge is valuable and its acquisition is costly; as a result people are careful about what to learn and how to learn it. We suggest that the dynamics of the “local” environment strongly influences the method that individuals choose to acquire useful knowledge and is one of the principal determinants of the way they compete and cooperate. We focus on theway different environments lead to different costs, especially the relative opportunity costs of search and communication and, consequently, to the emergence of different patterns of persistent cooperation and competition. In predictably regular and in predictably random …

Costly Information And The Evolution Of Self-Organization In A Small, Complex Economy., James A. Wilson

James Wilson

tThe core idea of evolution is that order in living systems emerges from a simple process of variation and selection. In biological systems we usually understand the source of variation as best described by the mechanisms of genetics. If human social systems are evolutionary systems, however, it would seem the variation that most explains the sources of change in these systems, occurs not from a genetic mechanism, but from individual learning. We use an evolutionary computational methodology to explore the way individual learning and adaptation lead to the evolution of persistent, self-organized social and economic activity. The basic idea behind …

Building A Sustainable Seafood System For Maine, Robin Alden

Maine Policy Review

In this article, Robin Alden notes that Maine could have one of the premier marine food systems in the world. However, that means adequate steward­ship of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem and diversifying the fishing industry beyond lobster by creating innovative public policy and a food system that supports community fishing.

Small Fishing Ports In Southern New England, Report To The National Science Foundation, Volume Ib, James Acheson, John T. Poggie Jr., Richard B. Pollnac

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Social and cultural aspects of fisheries management were examined to establish basic data on the fishing communities and fisheries of southern New England. Five small ports were selected for study--Newport, Chatham, and Westport, Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; and Stonington, Connecticut. These ports differ in terms of local, social, and geographical conditions, fishing styles, and emphases. Results of the study show that these ports act as a backup for the industry as a whole by (1) providing sources of fish for local markets; (2) using low energy models which reduce energy costs; (3) allowing individual fishermen a greater opportunity to find …

A Model Of Adaptive Behavior In The New England Fishing Industry, Report To The National Science Foundation, Volume Iii, James Acheson, James A. Wilson

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This volume is the third in a three volume series of reports submitted to the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "University of Rhode Island, University of Maine Study of Social and Cultural Aspects of Fisheries Management Under Extended Jurisdiction" (N.S.F. Grant Number AER77-060l8). This project was funded through the RANN Directorate of N.S.F. (Research Applied to National Needs), and was designed to provide data on social, cultural, and economic aspects of the New England fishinq scene which would be of value to those in industry and government concerned with managing the marine fisheries of the northeastern part of …

The Fishing Ports Of Maine And New Hampshire: 1978, Report To The National Science Foundation, Volume I, James Acheson, Ann Acheson, John R. Bort, Jayne Lello

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This volume is part of a final report on social science aspects of fisheries management in New England and is divided into three sections. In Section I, general background information is given concerning aspects of the fisheries in northern New England. Included is a history of fishing in the area, general information on the coastal environment and biology of major species caught and a background on fishing boats and gear, marketing and processing, and the legal environment. Section II describes each of the ports in Maine and New Hampshire, as they were in the baseline year of 1978, outlining the …

Essays On Social And Cultural Aspects Of New England Fisheries: Implications For Management, 1980 Final Report, Volume Ii, James Acheson

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This volume provides baseline data on the fishing communities and fisheries of New England, information on key values and social institutions, and a model for applying social science information to problems of fisheries management. Articles presented on institutions and values range from discussions of occupational commitment and types of fishermen and fish markets to studies of fishermen's wives and kinship. Several types of innovation, including a metal lobster trap and electronic fishing gear, are reported, and the social and economic factors that determine their adoption or non-adoption are considered. Four articles on applications of social and economic information to specific …

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project Environmental Impact Statement: Appendix E: Aquatic Ecosystem And Fisheries Studies, Christoipher J. Schmitt, James R. Beltz, Normandeau Associates, Inc., New England Division, United States Army Engineer Division

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project

Throughout this report, the following naming conventions will be used: the study area is the region of the Saint John River from Fort Kent to Ninemile Bridge and the drainage areas of all Saint John tributaries between Lincoln School and Ninemile Bridge within the United States, excluding the Allagash River drainage; the Dickey Lake Area is that region which would be inundated by the proposed Dickey Dam and the drainage areas of all rivers and streams (excluding the Saint John River) flowing into that proposed reservoir; the Lincoln School Reservoir area is that region which would be inundated by the …

Fishermen Of The Atlantic, Fishing Masters' Association

History of Maine Fisheries

Directory of ship captains, ships, fishing losses and advertisements for Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine.

Fishermen Of The Atlantic, Fishing Masters' Association

History of Maine Fisheries

Directory of ship captains, ships, fishing losses and advertisements for Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine.

Excerpt From Ten Years At Pemaquid By J. Henry Cartland, J Henry Cartland

History of Maine Fisheries

Discusses fisheries and fur trade in the Pemaquid settlement in the early Seventeenth Century. Discusses Alewive and Cod fisheries.

Journal Of Fishing Voyage, Schooner Sabina, 1859, Hubbard Flagg

History of Maine Fisheries

Journal for the Schooner Sabina, a cod fishing vessel from Harrington, Maine whose master was Hubbard Flagg. The Journal was produced for the collector of customs for the District of Machias, Maine and contains information about the weather and sailing conditions as well as a record of the number of fish taken each day. Includes fisherman's shipping paper.