Harmful Algae Bloom Dynamics: Validation of model predictions (possibilities and limitations) and status on coupled physical-biological process knowledge (Session A)

Conveners: Patrick Gentien (France) and Tapani Stipa (Finland)

In spite of large gaps of basic process knowledge around HAB dynamics, several 3-D modelling initiatives are ongoing with respect to studying and predicting HABs. Therefore it is due time to couple the expertise of modellers and biologists to reveal the most urgent needs for better process knowledge to improve the predictability of models. The Session aims at participation from 3-D modellers and biologists (including invited contributions from GEOHAB) interested in explaining:

• why HABs occur,
• how HABs are initiated,
• how and why HABs develop in space and time,
• why HABs decay;

and to demonstrate:

• existing 3-D modelling capabilities,
• status on validation of such models,
• the need for observations (satellite & in situ).

Patrick Gentien, CREMA, Place du Séminaire, BP 5, FR-17137 L'Houmeau, France, e-mail: pgentien@ifremer.fr

Tapani Stipa, Finnish Institute of Marine Research, P.O. Box 503, Erik Palménin aukio 1, FIN-00 560 Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: Tapani.Stipa@fimr.fi

Large-scale changes in the migration of small pelagic fish and the factors modulating such changes (Session B)

This Session is co-sponsored by PICES

Conveners: Jürgen Alheit (Germany), Dave Reid (UK), and Yoshiro Watanabe (Japan)

This Session aims to bring together studies on observed changes in migration patterns. These could include; track, timing, distance, or speed. Papers are invited on any documented changes in such migrations, but particularly where potential explanatory phenonema have been identified. These could include:

• Environmental change, e.g. upwelling and other oceanic events (e.g. ENSO), or climate change (e.g. NAO, current changes, etc.). These may include both physical (e.g. temperature) and biological (e.g. food availability) factors;
• Population structure: For example stock abundance and demography (age structure) as well as population parameters such as condition factor, maturity ogives, etc. The role of experienced adult fish in modulating migrations would be of particular interest;
• Anthropogenic factors: This is principally aimed at the impact of fishing activity, particularly before and after stock collapses, but can include the direct result of fishing activity on migration paths and timings.

Jürgen Alheit, Institut für Ostseeforschung, Seestrasse 15, DE-18119 Warnemünde, Germany, e-mail: juergen.alheit@io-warnemuende.de

Dave G. Reid, Fisheries Research Services, Marine Laboratory, P.O. Box 101, 375 Victoria Road, Aberdeen AB11 9DB, United Kingdom, e-mail: reiddg@marlab.ac.uk

Yoshiro Watanabe, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minamidai, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan, e-mail: ywatanab@ori.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Climatic variability in the ICES area – 2000–2005 in relation to previous decades: physical and biological consequences (Session C)

Census of Marine Life: Community and species biodiversity in marine benthic habitats from the coastal zone to the deep sea
(Session D)

Conveners: Michael Sinclair (Canada) and Myriam Sibuet (France)

At the ICES ASC in 2002, a special session was devoted to the Census of Marine Life (CoML). Since then, the Census has substantially advanced its aims of understanding the diversity, abundance, and distribution of marine organisms. There have been major developments in all components of its programme, with new results and exciting discoveries. It would be timely, and be a narrower component of the overall Census, to focus on benthic ecosystems and biogeography from the coastal zone to the deep sea. CoML projects involving community and species benthic biodiversity include Natural Geography in Shore Areas (NaGISA), Gulf of Maine Area Project (GOMA), Continental Margin Ecosystems on a Worldwide Scale (CoMargE), Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life (CeDAMar), Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Ecosystems (ChEss), Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CenSeam), Arctic Ocean Diversity (ArcOD), and the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML).

The Theme Session encourages papers of a synthesis nature, in which patterns of species and community diversity may be predicted based on environmental parameters and emerging conceptual developments relating diversity to productivity and disturbance. A Census objective is to produce a synthesis of the biogeography of the benthic habitats of the global oceans by 2010. The Theme Session will be an opportunity to initiate discussion on this challenge. Results of research on this theme, but not formally within the above CoML projects, are also most welcome.

A poster session is envisaged in addition to oral presentations.

Michael M. Sinclair, Dept. of Fisheries & Oceans, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, P.O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 4A2, Canada, e-mail: sinclairm@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Myriam Sibuet, IFREMER, Conseillère Scientifique et Technologique, IFREMER Centre de Brest, BP70, FR-29280 Plouzané, France, e-mail: Myriam.Sibuet@ifremer.fr

Operational oceanography (Session E)

This Session is co-sponsored by PICES

Conveners: Yves Desaubies (France), Guoqi Han (Canada), and Jeffrey M. Napp (USA)

Significant effort is devoted to develop Operational Oceanography systems on global, regional, and local scales. Operational systems combine ocean models with available in situ and remote sensed data to provide estimates of ocean structure (currents, temperature, salinity, and biogeochemical variables) either in real time, or in the form of retrospective analyses. While the context in which they operate differ somewhat from country to country, they generally share the objective to monitor and model ocean physics – and in some cases ecosystems – with the purpose of providing information and services to user communities (e.g. naval operations, marine transportation, fisheries management, and ecosystem science). Applications of Operational Oceanography to fisheries management and ecosystem science are the least advanced and require increased attention.

The objectives of the Session are:

• to present recent results on the development of such systems, and the information they can provide in support of fisheries research, understanding of large regional ecosystems and environmental management;
• to review experience from fishery and ecosystem scientists and from policy-makers on the use of products from operational systems;
• to assess to what extent the systems meet the requirements of ICES and other agencies engaged in ocean research, monitoring, resource management, and environmental reporting.

The Session could serve as a forum for exchanges on those topics, and will therefore be conducive to the improvement of the services provided by operational systems in meeting the expectations and needs of scientists and practitioners.

Yves Desaubies, IFREMER Centre de Brest, BP70, FR-29280 Plouzané, France, e-mail: Yves.Desaubies@ ifremer.fr

Guoqi Han, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Center, PO Box 5667, St. John's, NF A1C 5X1, Canada, e-mail: HanG@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Jeffrey M. Napp, MONITOR Technical Committee (Chairman), Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Bldg. 4, Seattle, WA 98115, USA, e-mail: Jeff.Napp@noaa.gov

What plankton are fish really eating? Species and diets, availability and dependency (Session F)

Conveners: Xabier Irigoien (Spain) and Christian Möllmann (Denmark)

An ecosystem approach to fisheries management requires understanding of the trophic linkages in the ecosystem. Despite very many studies and a widespread literature, uncertainties remain associated with estimating the transfer of secondary production to fish (or other) predators. Recently, climate change has been shown to strongly influence long-term trends, species composition, and distribution of dominating zooplankton species. To evaluate the importance of changes in the food supply on fish population dynamic processes, e.g. growth and recruitment, reliable information on their feeding ecology is required. This information is further important for reliably parameterizing ecosystem models.

This Theme Session aims at summarizing earlier as well as encouraging new studies on trends and dependencies in the diet of fish species at all stages of the life-cycle. We especially invite contributions which relate trends in feeding ecology to the ambient food supply, i.e. composition and size of the zooplankton community.

Xabier Irigoien, AZTI foundation, Herrera kaia portualdea z/g, ES-20110 Pasaia, Spain, e-mail: xirigoien@pas.azti.es

Christian Möllmann, Danish Institute for Fishery Research (DIFRES), Charlottenlund Slot, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark, e-mail: cmo@dfu.min.dk

Human health risks and marine environmental quality (Session G)

Conveners: A. D. Vethaak (The Netherlands) and T. Lang (Germany)

There are growing demands by researchers and policy-makers to address the risks and impact of environmental quality on human health. The goal of this Theme Session is to evaluate and discuss the existing knowledge of all aspects of marine environmental quality that may negatively affect human health.

Health risks may be associated with chemical, biological, radioactive, physical, and microbiological contamination as well as with fish and shellfish parasites and diseases. Chemical residues in fish and shellfish consumer products such as dioxins, furans, and PCBs and new emerging chemicals in relation to food safety generally require continuous surveillance and remain an ongoing problem in several ICES regions. The same is true for microbiological contamination (by E. coli and other pathogens) of beaches and shellfish products as a result of untreated or partially treated waste water discharges from land-based pipelines or ships. Toxic algae blooms and shell­fish poisoning represent continued threats for both swimmers and consumers. Information on the degree of radioactive contamination and their impact on humans, directly or through the food chain, is still sparse.

Contributions to the Theme Session covering relatively new human health threats, including geneti­cally modified organisms and their pathogens, the use of antimicrobial drugs in aquaculture, and physical disturbances such as noise and exhaust fumes from vessels or installations are especially welcome.

A. D. Vethaak, RIKZ, P.O. Box 20907, NL-2500 EX The Hague, The Netherlands, phone: +31 (0)70 3114219, fax: +31 (0)70 3114300, e-mail: a.d.vethaak@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl

T. Lang, Inst. f. Fischereiökologie, BFA f. Fischerei, Deichstraße 12, DE-27472 Cuxhaven, Germany, phone:+49 (0)4721 38034, fax: +49 (0)4721 53583, e-mail: thomas.lang@ifo.bfa-fisch.de

Evolutionary effects of exploitation on living marine
resources (Session H)

Conveners: Mikko Heino (Norway), Ulf Dieckmann (Austria), and Jeffrey A. Hutchings (Canada)

Today, fishing is the dominant source of mortality in most commercially exploited fish stocks. Since all fish species were genetically adapted to the environmental conditions experienced prior to intensive exploitation, the current, drastically altered conditions cannot possibly leave their life-history patterns unaffected. This evolutionary dimension of fisheries has been overlooked or downplayed for decades, so that fisheries scientists and managers are just now awakening to the challenges posed by further unmanaged fisheries-induced evolution.

This awakening appears to have been facilitated by two independent developments. First, over the past decade the focus in fisheries management has been widened, from the traditional goals of avoiding overfishing and securing maximum yield, to an ecosystem perspective reorganizing a much broader range of processes affecting marine biodiversity and its constituents.

As a second factor, a suite of scientific advances suggest that fisheries-induced evolution is not uncommon and that, if unmanaged, such processes may pose serious threats to exploited stocks and to their value as resources for humankind:

• There is growing recognition that fishing causes severe changes in the demographic properties of exploited stocks. This applies, in particular, to maturation: in most stocks, fish mature earlier today than they used to only a few decades ago.
• At the same time it has been shown that earlier maturation may have adverse implications for the reproductive potential of fish stocks, not only because large females produce more offspring per unit of body weight than smaller ones, but also because the size of females and the quality of their offspring tend to be positively correlated.
• Furthermore, thanks to recently developed improved statistical methods, it is becoming increasingly clear that most of the documented changes in maturation can be explained as partly evolutionary responses, and not only as phenotypic plasticity.
• Corroborating theoretical expectations, it has recently been demonstrated experimentally that size-selective fishing can cause genetic reductions in growth that result in a decline of harvestable biomass.

The proposed Theme Session aims at giving an overview of the recent progress in empirical and theoretical studies on fisheries-induced evolution, and at identifying the most important gaps in our knowledge. Key topics to be dealt with are:

• Empirical demonstrations of fisheries-induced evolutionary changes, also in traits other than age and size at maturation;
• Linking insights into the phenotypic and genetic dimensions of evolution in exploited populations;
• Measuring quantitative genetic parameters of exploited stocks needed for predicting the expected pace of fisheries-induced evolution;
• Clarifying the mechanisms through which fisheries-induced evolution may contribute to reductions in stock stability, yield, and recovery potential;
• Investigating how fisheries regimes that are least detrimental for genetic composition depend on the life-history patterns of exploited stocks;
• Developing appropriate management and assessment tools for coping with fisheries-induced evolution.

Mikko Heino, Institute of Marine Research, Box 1870 Nordnes, NO-5817 Bergen, Norway, e-mail: mikko@imr.no

Ulf Dieckmann, Evolution and Ecology Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, AT-2361 Laxenburg, Austria, e-mail: dieckmann@iiasa.ac.at

Jeffrey A. Hutchings, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4J1, e-mail: Jeff.Hutchings@dal.ca

Quantifying, summarizing, and integrating total uncertainty in fisheries resource surveys (Session I)

Conveners: David Demer (USA) and Steve Smith (Canada)

Fisheries management requires risk assessments and methods for quantitatively evaluating changes in fish stocks or ecological systems. To evaluate risk and change, fisheries managers and scientists must be armed with a quantitative understanding of survey uncertainty that includes all the components of measurement and sampling error, both random and systematic. These errors must be incorporated into ecosystem analyses, and explicitly accounted for in stock assessment models and management advice.

In particular papers are invited on:

• Methods for quantifying and summarizing the systematic and random error in survey measurements and sampling;
• Techniques for summarizing these components of error into estimates of total survey error;
• Bayesian and other techniques for incorporating systematic and random survey error in stock assessment models;
• Detecting changes in a measurement data series which includes systematic and random error;
• Applications of statistical process control theory to fisheries management; and
• Strategies for managing fish stocks in the presence of measurement and sampling uncertainty.

David Demer, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA/NMFS, 8604 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA, e-mail: david.demer@noaa.gov

Stephen Smith, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, 1 Challenger Drive, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, B2A 4A2, Canada, e-mail: smithsj@mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Is there more to eels than SLIME? (Session J)

Conveners: Mike Pawson (UK), Håkan Wickström (Sweden), and Willem Dekker (The Netherlands)

The serious condition of the European eel ( Anguilla anguilla) stock has now been universally accepted, and both ICES and the European Commission have recently held a number of meetings and commissioned studies to develop eel recovery plans and associated data collection. These initiatives will generate new information on the status and management of eel stocks, and new and important research findings are emerging in eel genetics, life-history energetics, parasites, and environmental contamination. This Theme Session will serve to raise the profile of these issues and the development of plans for eel stock recovery, and encourage scientific discussion and links with similar work on the American eel (Anguilla rostrata).

The ASC will be held in Holland (Maastricht), where the eel is one of its most important commercial fisheries, so this will serve to showcase a national problem and encourage local participation from both scientists and managers.

Submissions to the Theme Session are invited on any other eel-related topic, but especially:

• Evaluating the status of eel stocks and setting management targets (taking account of uncertainty and diversity);
• Evaluating causes of stock decline and threats to eel populations (e.g. climate change; habitat degradation and access; species interactions; exploitation; differential effects on stock components);
• Assessing social and economic factors that affect stakeholders and management;
• Planning, prioritising, and evaluating management actions and research, including 'insurance' measures (e.g. gene banks, restocking);
• Monitoring and evaluating progress;
• Not only “success stories” contribute to our knowledge, so new, innovative and integrated approaches to eel issues are more than welcome.

Mike Pawson, CEFAS, Lowestoft Laboratory, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 0HT, UK, e-mail: m.g.pawson@cefas.co.uk

Håkan Wickström, Swedish Board of Fisheries, Institute of Freshwater Research, SE-178 93 Drottningholm, Sweden, e-mail: hakan.wickstrom@fiskeriverket.se

Discarding: quantities, causes, and consequences (Session K)

Conveners: Marie-Joëlle Rochet (France) and Lisa Borges (The Netherlands)

Discarding is an important feature of fishing practices in worldwide fisheries. Discards have long been seen as a source of waste and of information bias in single-stock management. Moving towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management increases the concern, as discarding may affect non-target species, habitats, and the food-web as a whole. Therefore, an improved understanding of the social and environmental factors that determine discarding behaviours is needed. Furthermore, consequences of discarding such as the effects of this unaccounted mortality on populations and communities, and the fate of discarded animals (both in terms of individual survival and recycling in ecosystem processes) are major issues. New insights will have important implications in what should be monitored (e.g. indicators of potentially harmful fishing practices, discards quantities) and which management measures are likely to be effective answers to this problem.

The Commission of the European Union has instigated an estimation of the amount of waste and the development of regulations to limit bad fishing practices. Since 2002 the EU requires member states to collect discard data (Commission Regulation No. 1639/2001). The objective of the regulation was to gather and improve availability of data on discarding. Consequently, several countries initiated or expanded discard sampling programmes. There is a need to discuss approaches in sampling strategies, estimation methods, and raising procedures; but also in the integration of discard data in stock assessment and management advice. The increase in discard data available also provides an opportunity to analyse patterns, causes, and consequences of discards across many fisheries.

This Theme Session will attract contributions throughout the ICES community under the following topics:

Discarding behaviour

Factors determining discard quantities and composition: economic incentives, environmental factors, fishing practices (place and time fished, fishing methods, sorting) and of regulation measures including gear technology, mesh changes, minimum landing size, temporal and spatial closures, Total Allowable Catches, discarding bans, mandatory observers.

Discard estimation

Sampling designs, raising variables and procedures, variability.

Consequences of discarding

Biological studies of impacts on species and communities, fate of discarded materials, effects on the flow of energy through food webs.

Integration of discards data into stock assessment: impact on precision and bias of SSB, F, and recruitment estimates. Indicators of discarded quantities and practices.

Marie-Joëlle Rochet, Department EMH, IFREMER, B.P. 21105, FR-44311 Nantes Cedex 03, France, e-mail: Marie.Joelle.Rochet@ifremer.fr

Lisa Borges, Netherlands Institute for Fisheries Research, P.O.Box 68, NL-1970 AB IJmuiden, The Netherlands, e-mail: lisa.borges@wur.nl

Marine mammals, seabirds, and fisheries: ecosystem effects and advice provision (Session L)

Conveners: Mark Tasker (UK), Stefan Garthe (Germany), and Simon Northridge (UK)

Fisheries can affect marine mammals and seabirds in a variety of ways. Most directly, fishing gear can entangle and kill individuals. The scale of some of these interactions has the potential to adversely affect populations. Recent research has elucidated the levels of bycatch and population abundance for some species and has modelled population effects. Indirect effects of fisheries may occur through the food chain, both by the removal of large fish competitors and through provision of discarded fisheries waste. Seabirds and marine mammals can also affect fish resources (and thereby possibly fisheries) through food consumption. Recent research in this area has generated estimates of fish consumption by non-fish predators; some of these data have previously been incorporated into ICES multi-species models and more can be done in this respect. The need for ICES to provide ecosystem advice integrated with traditional fisheries advice provides challenges for moving information on these interactions into advice provision. In particular, reductions in unwanted interactions will most likely need advice provision on a gear-by-gear and regional basis.

This Session will bring together the latest scientific progress in these areas and aims to examine ways in which this information may be collected and integrated systematically into the advice of ICES.

Papers are expected/sought from:

• the results of the 2005 survey of small cetaceans in NW European waters (SCANS II) (available in summer 2006);
• the outputs of the management framework modelling associated with SCANS II;
• results from bycatch studies and monitoring schemes in European waters;
• studies on marine mammal and seabird use of discards;
• results from attempts to incorporate marine mammal predation into assessments;
• proposals for methods of integrating scientific studies and monitoring results into advice;
• the results of the EU project DISCBIRD (effects of changing discarding rates on seabirds);
• the results of the EU projects IMPRESS and BECAUSE investigating trophic relationships in the upper food web and under different environmental conditions.

Mark Tasker, JNCC, Dunnet House 7, Thistle Place, Aberdeen AB10 1UZ, UK, e-mail: mark.tasker@jncc.gov.uk

Stefan Garthe, Forschungs- und Technologiezentrum Westküste, University of Kiel, Hafentörn, DE-25761 Büsum, Germany, e-mail: garthe@ftz-west.uni-kiel.de

Environmental and fisheries data management, access, and integration (Session M)

Conveners: Christopher Zimmerman (Germany), Helge Sagen (Norway), and Peter H. Wiebe (USA)

Enhanced integration of diverse fishery, oceanographic, and other marine environmental data, and tools to enable fishery and environmental assessments are needed to respond to the requirements for ecosystem-based management initiatives. The growing number of databases and data sources requires new approaches to be developed for efficient access to data – and especially to data in distributed databases. Management of the data also requires new approaches to meet enhanced requirements and take advantage of new technologies, for example, GIS-based systems and the internet. This Theme Session invites the participation of database specialists, distributed data specialists, visualization specialists, end users, and others. It is hoped that they will present and/or demonstrate:

• technical solutions for data integration;
• novel ways to merge/integrate/distribute disparate data;
• experience with use and visualization of integrated data;
• data quality assurance and indicators;
• improved methods for displaying complex data sets;
• examples of successful applications.

Christopher Zimmerman, Bundesforschungsanstalt f. Fischerei, Institut für Ostseefischerei, Alter Hafen Süd 2, DE-180 69 Rostock, Germany, e-mail: christopher.zimmermann@ ior.bfa-fisch.de

Helge Sagen, Institute of Marine Research, P.O. Box 1870 Nordnes, NO-5817 Bergen, Norway, e-mail: helge.sagen@imr.no

Peter Wiebe, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1050, USA, e-mail: pwiebe@whoi.edu

Technologies for monitoring fishing activities and observing catch (Session N)

Conveners: Bill Karp (USA) and Kjell Nedreaas (Norway)

Collection of data during fishing operations is necessary to support science, management, and compliance monitoring objectives. Traditionally, this type of information has been collected by trained observers, but costs associated with deployment of observers are high and some types of monitoring can now be carried out using electronic technologies (e.g. Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), video systems, electronic logbooks). Furthermore, observer efficiency may be improved through technological innovation and some types of data are better collected by automated, self-contained electronic systems. Following collection of data by observers or electronic instruments, innovative database and communications methods may be used to ensure that timely, high-quality data are available to support near real-time inseason quota management, feedback to the fleet to aid bycatch reduction, and other objectives. This Theme Session will focus on successful implementation of technologies in support of science, management, and compliance monitoring objectives, and evaluation of technological approaches that hold promise for addressing these goals in the future. While we encourage all relevant contributions, those that address the following topics will be particularly welcome:

• Case studies and examples of electronic monitoring which integrate technologies to address specific objectives or demonstrate innovative applications of individual technologies;
• Innovative approaches which hold promise for addressing monitoring information needs, particularly those that bring new technologies to the attention of the community;
• Systems for acquiring, integrating, managing, and disseminating monitoring data;
• Examples of innovative monitoring introduced by the fishing industry or through industry/government collaboration;
• Addressing real-time information needs for inseason management, bycatch reduction, and other objectives;
• Technologies that can be used by observers to improve data quality or the quantity and range of data collected;
• Impediments to innovation — confidentiality, verification, reluctance (by industry or government), etc.;
• Applications of technology for collecting ancillary scientific (physical, chemical, biological) information during fishing operations.

William Karp, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS/NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA, e-mail: bill.karp@noaa.gov

Kjell Nedreaas, Institute of Marine Research, P.O. Box 1870 Nordnes, NO-5817 Bergen, Norway, e-mail: kjell.nedreaas@imr.no

Spatio-temporal characteristics of fish populations in relation to environmental forcing functions as a component of ecosystem-based assessment: effects on catchability (Session O)

Conveners: François Gerlotto (France) and Doug Beare (JRC, Italy)

Environmental factors force the spatial and temporal characteristics of fish distributions at various different scales; from individual school structures and dynamics up to basin level distributions. Characterization of these structures and their relationships to external forcing parameters can provide major insights into how and why these structures occur, and evolve. The ecosystem approach to fisheries management requires not only an understanding of how fisheries can impact management, but also how environmental factors can affect our ability to monitor, assess, and manage the fisheries themselves. This Session is intended to focus on those aspects of fish distribution and behaviour which are responsive to changes in environmental conditions and which can then impact on our ability to manage these stocks. A simple example would be when a change in conditions prevents a given fish species from remaining in the demersal zone; rendering it inaccessible to bottom trawls but at the same time more visible to acoustic surveys. This is not just relevant to surveys and management, but also to understanding changes in fisheries. Again, a simple example would be the changes in distribution of a key commercial fishery in response to a warming ocean.

The Theme Session will, therefore, focus on how the behavioural and ecological patterns of fish adapt to environmental changes (e.g. spatial structures, schooling, avoidance reactions, reaction to fishing gear, multispecies interactions, etc.), leading to changes in catchability in its widest context, i.e. its importance to both the organisation and planning of research surveys and the interpretation of commercial landings data. We are particularly interested in presentations that make use of such understandings to inform management advice, but straightforward papers that simply describe the type of relationships outlined above are also welcome.

François Gerlotto, I.R.D., Avenue Jean Monnet, B.P. 171, FR-34203 Sète Cedex, France, e-mail: francois.gerlotto@ird.fr 

Doug Beare, Joint Research Centre, Via E. Fermi 1, IT-21020 Ispra (VA), Italy, e-mail: doug.beare@jrc.it

Integrated assessments in support of regional seas ecosystem advice – beyond quality status reporting (Session P)

Conveners: Andrew Kenny (UK), Bill Turrell (UK), and Keith Brander (GLOBEC/ICES)

The provision of integrated advice is a challenge, it is a process which must be supported by methods and tools that allow diverse sources of data and information on numerous pressure and state changes to be objectively and scientifically assessed. The emphasis of this Theme Session is to explore the approaches taken (in terms of frameworks, tools, and techniques developed) to integrate diverse sources of marine data for assessment purposes. The Theme Session wishes to highlight what we can learn by undertaking such analyses and the value it can add to the provision of integrated advice at a regional seas scale. The aim is to improve the management of human activities, and the regulation of pollution pressures, in a way not presently achieved by quality status reporting.

Papers are therefore especially invited on:

• Metadata analysis (numerical methods of analysis and approaches which accommodate diverse sources of data measured in different units and scales);
• Lessons learnt (what are the limitations, assumptions, and benefits of integrated data assessment and how should the results be best presented to meets the needs for advice and management purposes?);
• Examples of how integrated assessments of data and information have led to changes in the management of activities or the regulation of pollution pressures.

Andrew Kenny, CEFAS, Burham-on-Crouch Laboratory, Remembrance Avenue, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex CM0 8HA, UK, e-mail: andrew.kenny@cefas.co.uk

Bill Turrell, Fisheries Research Services, Marine Laboratory, P.O. Box 101, 375 Victoria Road, Aberdeen AB11 9DB, UK, e-mail: turrellb@marlab.ac.uk

Keith Brander, ICES, H.C. Andersens Blvd. 44–46, DK-1553 Copenhagen V, Denmark, e-mail: keith@ices.dk

Use of data storage tags to reveal aspects of fish behaviour important for fisheries management (Session Q)

Conveners: David Somerton (USA) and Julian Metcalfe (UK)

The use of data storage tags has expanded greatly in recent years as the tags have become smaller and less expensive. Data from these tags have revealed detailed aspects of diurnal, tidal, and seasonal movement patterns that influence our ability to assess and manage commercial species. For example, daily vertical migration can influence the availability of demersal species to bottom trawl surveys and has the potential of changing the target strength of pelagic species and thereby influencing their assessment by acoustic surveys. Likewise, the timing of seasonal migrations, relative to the time of assessment surveys, can change the proportion of the stock within the survey area and therefore change the effective catchability of the survey. Besides these uses for stock assessment, archival tagging data may also have uses for fisheries management, especially the timing of permitted fishing periods. Presentations for both demersal and pelagic fish species are welcome.

David Somerton, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS/NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115, USA, e-mail: david.somerton@noaa.gov

Julian Metcalfe, CEFAS, Lowestoft Laboratory, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 0HT, UK, e-mail: j.d.metcalfe@cefas.co.uk

ICES advice in a changing world! (Session R)

Conveners: Wim van Densen (The Netherlands), Nick Bailey (UK), and Paddy Walker (The Netherlands)

Management advice, both on fisheries and in relation to the environment, is based on the limited amount of information and insight that we possess, supplemented by assumptions and premises. One of these premises is that past history can be used to predict the future. Historical information on the dynamics of fish stocks and fisheries anyway should guide future management under environmental uncertainty. Basic features like the productivity of stocks and interactions in the ecosystem can be inferred from historical experience.

This Session will look beyond mere prediction and related advice and attempt to answer the question:

How can, and should, management advice account for environmental variability and trends – either foreseen or unforeseen?

This theme includes how to assess and categorise environmental variability, how to recognise major ecosystem changes, what adequate advice to give in such situations, and how to evaluate subsequent management in support of its future quality?

Policy-makers are heavily dependent upon the quality of scientific advice and on the way various kinds of uncertainty are accounted for, environmental variability in particular. The credibility of the advice given by fishery scientists is thus of the utmost importance; not least because proposed actions to regulate fisheries affect the lives of many people and can be costly if subsequently found to be inappropriate.

Clearly, ICES cannot ignore changes in the environment – whether of natural or anthropogenic origin – without either being criticised or loosing credibility for the oversight. If managers do not want to be confronted with various sources of uncertainty in the advice that they receive, should they be informed more explicitly then about variances and trends in the marine ecosystem, including the ones related to the up-warming? How can the management account for changes in the environment in a more systematic manner?

Contributions from scientists, managers, and policy-makers are invited on:

• Variability and gradual changes in the productivity of stocks; namely, how to assess and categorize variances and trends and how should they be accounted for in advice and in subsequent management actions?
• Approaches that ICES should adopt to advise on the relative effects of different local anthropogenic influences such as wind farms, pollution, changes to river outflow, and coastal water quality improvements.
• If a stock collapses, is it appropriate and feasible to restore its commercial viability? Is it worth the price or is there life without a particular over-exploited stock?

Wim van Densen, Netherlands Institute of Fisheries Research (RIVO), PO Box 68, NL-1970 AB IJmuiden, The Netherlands, e-mail: wim.vandensen@wur.nl

Nick Bailey, Fisheries Research Services, Marine Laboratory, P.O. Box 101, 375 Victoria Road, Aberdeen AB11 9DB, UK, e-mail: n.bailey@marlab.ac.uk

Paddy Walker, National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management (RIKZ), Postbus 207, NL9750 AE Haren Gn, The Netherlands p.walker@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl