Responsive harvest control rules provide inherent resilience to adverse effects of climate change and scientific uncertainty

Abstract

Climate change is altering marine ecosystem and fish stock dynamics worldwide. These effects add to scientific uncertainties that compromise fisheries management. Among the strategies that can respond to climate change and scientific uncertainty, modifications to harvest control rules (HCRs) might be among the most direct and impactful. We used a bioeconomic model to compare alternative HCRs in terms of biomass, yield, and profits in response to potential effects of climate change and scientific uncertainty, specifically simulated retrospective patterns, for 14 stocks on the Northeast Shelf of the United States. Our results suggest that a responsive HCR in which fishing mortality changes with measured changes in biomass builds inherent resilience to adverse effects of both climate change and scientific uncertainty relative to an HCR in which fishing mortality is precautionary but fixed. This was despite that fact that the HCR algorithm did not account for the climate effects modeled. A fixed fishing mortality HCR was effective when climate effects were negligible or beneficial. Scientific uncertainty further reduced biomass, yield, and profits by about the same magnitude as climate change. Our results suggest that simple changes to HCRs can be a readily implementable strategy for responding to climate change and scientific uncertainty.