Daniel A. Ovando

University of Washington Seattle | UW · School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences

Climate change is projected to affect the productivity of global fisheries. Management based on maximum sustainable yield (MSY) has been effective at eliminating overfishing in many regions. However, continuing to use yield‐maximizing targets under climate‐driven changes in productivity can result in higher anthropogenic pressure on populations sub...

The term “data-limited fisheries” is a catch-all to generally describe situations lacking data to support a fully integrated stock assessment model. Data conditions range from data-void fisheries to those that reliably produce quantitative assessments. However, successful fishery assessment can also be limited by resources (e.g., time, money, capac...

Many marine species are shifting their distributions in response to changing ocean conditions, posing significant challenges and risks for fisheries management. Species distribution models (SDMs) are used to project future species distributions in the face of a changing climate. Information to fit SDMs generally comes from two main sources: fishery...

Accurate forecasts of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in Bristol Bay, Alaska, play an important role in management and harvesting decisions for this culturally and ecologically vital species. We used a suite of parametric and non-parametric models to assess the frontiers in forecast accuracy of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon possible given currentl...

Significance The incidental catch of threatened species is still one of the main barriers to fisheries sustainability. What would happen if we closed 30% of the ocean to fishing with the goal of reducing bycatch? Analyzing 15 different fisheries around the globe, we found that under static area management, such as classic no-take marine area closur...

Understanding the status of fish stocks is a critical step in ensuring the ecological and economic sustainability of marine ecosystems. However, at least half of global catch and a vast majority of global fisheries lack formal stock assessments, largely due to a lack of sufficient data. Catch data, loosely referring to any catch records be it inclu...

As the world population grows, fisheries practitioners will be under increased pressure to address global challenges in data-limited fisheries management. With a focus on addressing localized and case-specific management needs, we provide a practical guide to the design and development of multi-indicator frameworks for fishery management. In a data...

The pelagic fisheries beyond the continental shelves are currently managed with a range of tools largely based on regulating effort or target catch. These tools comprise both static and dynamic area‐based approaches to include gear limitations, closed areas and bycatch limits. There are increasing calls for additional area‐based interventions, part...

Changes in the marine environment, particularly climate change, can have large effects on the distribution patterns of various marine species, and alter the biodiversity, structure and functions of the affected ecosystems. Species distribution models (SDM) are tools often used to link species’ ecological niches with their environment. We applied SD...

Implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals requires assessments of the global state of fish populations. While we have reliable estimates of stock status for fish populations accounting for approximately half of recent global catch, our knowledge of the state of the majority of the world's “unassessed” fish stocks remains hi...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) cover 3-7% of the world's ocean, and international organizations call for 30% coverage by 2030. Although numerous studies show that MPAs produce conservation benefits inside their borders, many MPAs are also justified on the grounds that they confer conservation benefits to the connected populations that span beyond th...

Catch-only models (COMs) have been the focus of ongoing research into data-poor stock assessment methods. Two of the most recent models that are especially promising are (i) CMSY+, the latest refined version of CMSY that has progressed from Catch-MSY, and (ii) SRA+ (Stock Reduction Analysis Plus). Comparing COMs and evaluating their relative perfor...

Bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean were perceived as overfished for nearly 20 years, in large part because of incidental catch in the much larger skipjack tuna fishery. Efforts to halt the overfishing of bigeye stalled because of disagreements over the distribution of costs and benefits from reform. An alternative Coasean-style ap...

We compile global data to examine the current status, trends, threats, and opportunities in the world's wild-capture fisheries. We find that global fisheries have largely diverged—well-managed, often industrial fisheries tend to be in reasonably good health, while coastal fisheries, often from low-governance regions, tend to be in poor health. Good...

A hopeful vision of the future is a world in which both people and nature thrive, but there is little evidence to support the feasibility of such a vision. We used a global, spatially explicit, systems modeling approach to explore the possibility of meeting the demands of increased populations and economic growth in 2050 while simultaneously advanc...

The world’s oceans supply food and livelihood to billions of people, yet species’ shifting geographic ranges and changes in productivity arising from climate change are expected to profoundly affect these benefits. We ask how improvements in fishery management can offset the negative consequences of climate change; we find that the answer hinges on...

Healthy fisheries can reduce bycatch Bycatch of marine mammals, turtles, and birds during commercial fishing is a considerable threat. Activities intended to reduce bycatch are often thought to conflict with commercial fishing. However, Burgess et al. show that in the majority of cases, managing fishery stocks to best promote long-term sustainabili...

Fishery managers must often reconcile conflicting estimates of population status and trend. Superensemble models, commonly used in climate and weather forecasting, may provide an effective solution. This approach uses predictions from multiple models as covariates in an additional “superensemble” model fitted to known data. We evaluated the potenti...

The exploitation status of marine fisheries stocks worldwide is of critical importance for food security, ecosystem conservation, and fishery sustainability. Applying a suite of data-limited methods to global catch data, combined through an ensemble modeling approach, we provide quantitative estimates of exploitation status for 785 fish stocks. Fif...

Territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs), which allocate spatial fishing rights to fishers, are increasingly implemented in an effort to incentivize sustainable fishing practices. In some contexts, TURFs may be preferred over other rights-based approaches, such as individual transferable quotas (ITQs). However, TURFs may not always achieve fishe...

The challenges of common-pool resource harvesting have confronted the world's fisheries for centuries. Efforts to mitigate these challenges have led to an extensive literature on fishery _performance_ under alternative management practices, but relatively little evidence exists on the factors that drive the _adoption_ of these management approaches...

Significance What would extensive fishery reform look like? In addition, what would be the benefits and trade-offs of implementing alternative approaches to fisheries management on a worldwide scale? To find out, we assembled the largest-of-its-kind database and coupled it to state-of-the-art bioeconomic models for more than 4,500 fisheries around...

The population of red spiny lobster (Panulirus penicillatus) around the Galapagos Islands has supported a fishery since the 1960s. However, conservation concerns have been raised given signs of over-exploitation observed during the mid-2000s, including decreasing trends in catch per unit effort (CPUE), yield, and profitability. We developed an inte...

Well-managed fisheries support healthy ocean ecosystems, coastal livelihoods and food security for millions of people. However, many communities lack the resources to implement effective fisheries management. No-take marine reserves are a ubiquitous management intervention that provide conservation benefits and under certain circumstances can provi...

The argument persists that the continued overexploitation by many fisheries around the world is evidence that current approaches to fisheries management are failing, and that more precautionary management approaches are needed. We review the available estimates of the status of fish stocks from three sources: the FAO's “State of Marine Resources”,...

Stock status is a key parameter for evaluating the sustainability of fishery resources and developing corresponding management plans. However, the majority of stocks are not assessed, often as a result of insufficient data and a lack of resources needed to execute formal stock assessments. The working group involved in this publication focused...

Cooperatives are increasingly proposed as solutions for sustainable fisheries management. While individual case studies and economic theory suggest that cooperatives may manage fisheries effectively under some conditions, there is little empirical evidence comparing the actions of cooperative fisheries across a diverse set of environments. This stu...

Recent reports suggest that many well-assessed fisheries in developed countries are moving toward sustainability. We examined whether the same conclusion holds for fisheries lacking formal assessment, which comprise >80% of global catch. We developed a method using species’ life-history, catch, and fishery development data to estimate the status of...

Few studies have examined seasonal diet variation and trophic relationships among fishes in shallow subtropical waters. We sampled consecutive wet and dry seasons within Biscayne Bay, Florida, USA, to examine seasonal diet and feeding habit variation in juvenile gray snapper Lutjanus griseus (GS), bluestriped grunt Haemulon sciurus (BSG), seabream...