Jake Rice

Fisheries and Oceans Canada | DFO

This paper contrasts seven spatial biodiversity conservation area designations by six different bodies: Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs), and the Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) of the Food And Agriculture Organiz...

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...

The ICES/IUCN-CEM FEG Workshop on Testing OECM Practices and Strategies (WKTOPS) investigated how to evaluate areas with spatial fisheries measures in place as other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in line with Convention on Biological Diversity definitions, specifically the extent to which area-based fisheries management measure...

There is a widespread tendency for diverse uses of Nature, on scales from small and local to very large, to become unsustainable. Once unsustainable, bringing a use back to sustainability and keeping it sustainable then takes substantial effort and tools appropriate to the context of the use. This Perspective first asks why is the tendency for unsu...

Many of the marine policy frameworks developed to protect biodiversity in deep-sea areas, including areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), include indicators to assess policy objectives. These frameworks often have specific guidance on how the indicators should be applied and interpreted. Selection of indicators is an important process and thos...

With wild-capture fisheries, important globally as a source of food and livelihood, and facing chronic overfishing, development of the best available science can reduce scientific uncertainty and improve the quality of science-based advice and the credibility to stakeholders of the management decisions based on that science. Fish stock assessments...

This article recounts my career path, from academic ornithologist to applied quantitative ecologist, to research and science advisor within the Canadian federal Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans. It highlights factors that prompted abrupt changes in career direction and, at each stage in progression of my career, how the diversity of experiences pri...

Balanced harvest has been proposed to reduce fishing impact on ecosystems while simultaneously maintaining or even increasing fishery yield. The concept has attracted broad interest, but also received criticisms. In this paper, we examine the theory, modelling studies, empirical evidence, the legal and policy frameworks, and management implications...

Marine policy and management has to cope with a plethora ofhuman activities that cause pressures leading to changes to the natural and human systems. Accordingly, it requires many policy and management responses to address traditional, cultural, social, ecological, technical, and economic policy objectives. Because of this, we advocate that a fully...

The Americas region is highly biologically and culturally diverse. It hosts 7 out of the 17 most biodiverse countries of the world and spans from pole to pole, with some of the most extensive wilderness areas on the planet and highly distinctive or irreplaceable species composition. The Americas is also a highly culturally and socioeconomically div...

Biodiversity mainstreaming, the consideration of biodiversity across fisheries and the range of actions taken by both fisheries and conservation governance streams is the subject of this paper. Evidence is presented that the global fishery community incrementally adopted sustainable development principles from both before and after the 1992 adoptio...

The World Ocean presents many opportunities, with the blue economy projected to at least double in the next two decades. However, capitalizing on these opportunities presents significant challenges and a multi-sectoral, integrated approach to managing marine socio-ecological systems will be required to achieve the full benefits projected for the bl...

The policy history of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) is first reviewed, from the perspectives of both intergovernmental agencies involved in resource management and agencies focused on conservation of biodiversity, focusing on how the agencies adapted the EA to the marine environment. This provides the general interpretation of “ecosystem approach,” b...

The historical trends in Canadian Atlantic and Pacific fish stocks and fisheries are reviewed, as is the contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to Canadian coastal economies historically and in the present. Recent trends in oceanographic conditions are reviewed, with a focus on temperature and salinity profiles and currents on both coasts. Ocean...

As the summer minimum in Arctic sea ice cover reduces in area year by year due to anthropogenic global climate change, so interest grows in the untapped oil, gas and fisheries resources that were previously concealed beneath. We show that existing marine protected areas in the Arctic Ocean offer little or no protection to many habitats and deep sea...

The World Ocean Assessment is the culmination of the work of nearly 600 scientists and experts from many countries, representing various disciplines and steered by a 22-member Group of Experts. The Assessment examines the current state of knowledge of the world's oceans and the ways in which humans benefit from and affect them. The Assessment indic...

As the environmental issues facing our planet change, scientific efforts need to inform the sustainable management of marine resources by adopting a socio-ecological systems approach. Taking the symposium on “Understanding marine socio-ecological systems: including the human dimension in Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (MSEAS)” as an opportunity w...

The World Ocean presents many opportunities, with the blue economy projected to at least double in the next two decades. However, capitalizing on these opportunities presents significant challenges and a multi-sectoral, integrated approach to managing marine socio-ecological systems will be required to achieve the full benefits projected for the bl...

Canada has strong institutional capacity for science-based decision-making related to natural resource conservation and environmental management. Yet, the concept of using systematic reviews (conducted in accordance with established guidelines) to support evidence-based conservation and environmental management in Canada is in its infancy. Here we...

Reliable statements about variability and change in marine ecosystems and their underlying causes are needed to report on their status and to guide management. Here we use the Framework on Ocean Observing (FOO) to begin developing ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables (eEOVs) for the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). An eEOV is a defined biolog...

This report presents relevant material to inform a June 2015 DFO National Science Advisory meeting to produce a science-based consensus interpretation of the phrase, and associated guidance on reporting on: “Percentage of total coastal and marine territory conserved in marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures” in...

Ce rapport présente des renseignements pertinents pour étayer le constat de la réunion de consultation scientifique nationale du MPO de juin 2015 visant à donner une interprétation scientifique commune de la phrase « pourcentage du territoire côtier et marin total conservé grâce à l'établissement de zones de protection marine et à d'autres mesures...

A Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socio-economic Aspects (Regular Process) On 23 December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 70/235 on “Oceans and the law of the sea,” in which it welcomed with appreciation the first global integrated marine assessment...

The concept of the Ecosystem Approach has entered the fishery harvesting discussions both from fishery perspectives (Reykjavik Declaration; FAO 2003 Annex to the Code of Conduct and from the principles of the Ecosystem Approach adopted by the CBD in 1995. Both perspectives establish the need to maintain ecosystem structure and functioning, whether...

The policy history of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) is first reviewed, from the perspectives of both intergovernmental agencies involved in resource management and agencies focused on conservation of biodiversity, focusing on how the agencies adapted the EA to the marine environment. This provides the general interpretation of “ecosystem approach,” b...

This chapter reviews the biological basis of fisheries management in the context of the sustainable use of marine resources and conservation of biodiversity. A roughly chronological approach is taken in discussing developments with regard to managing impacts of fishing on target species, bycatch, marine habitats and food web relationships. The chap...

International agreements and guidelines provide the overall goals of sustainable development and healthy ecosystems, but it is at the national level that these must be implemented while addressing the interests of the nation and its citizens with decisions that affect people as well as the environment. This chapter summarizes the approaches taken b...

This chapter reviews the evolution of the activities of both the conservation of biodiversity and the fisheries management governance streams to identify and promote the protection of marine species at risk of extinction, particularly marine fish and invertebrates exploited in commercial fisheries. It focuses on the roles of International Union for...

This chapter compares the criteria adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for identifying areas that are ecologically or biologically significant and by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for areas that are vulnerable marine ecosystems (VME) relative to deep-sea fishing. It traces their parallel histories of development and de...

The natural mortality of exploited fish populations is notoriously difficult to estimate. It is therefore often inferred from Pauly's equation using estimates of growth parameters and ambient temperature. However, contrary to the results derived from multispecies and size-spectra models, Pauly's equation assumes that natural mortality is independen...

Peck, M. A., Neuenfeldt, S., Essington, T. E., Trenkel, V. M., Takasuka, A., Gislason, H., Dickey-Collas, M., Andersen, K. H., Ravn-Jonsen, L., Vestergaard, N., Kvamsdal, S., Gårdmark, A., Link, J., and Rice, J. Forage Fish Interactions: a symposium on “Creating the tools for ecosystem-based management of marine resources”. – ICES Journal of Marine...

We present a framework for evaluating fisheries management plans comprehensively, both rebuilding plans and others. The framework includes a first rapid appraisal of the likelihood that the plan will result in management meeting its objectives, and guides subsequent quantitative analyses of potential weaknesses in the proposed plan. The framework i...

Hollowed, A. B., Barange, M., Beamish, R., Brander, K., Cochrane, K., Drinkwater, K., Foreman, M., Hare, J., Holt, J., Ito, S-I., Kim, S., King, J., Loeng, H., MacKenzie, B., Mueter, F., Okey, T., Peck, M. A., Radchenko, V., Rice, J., Schirripa, M., Yatsu, A., and Yamanaka, Y. 2013. Projected impacts of climate change on marine fish and fisheries....

Rice, J., Daan, N., Gislason, H., and Pope, J. Does functional redundancy stabilize fish communities? – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 734–742. Functional redundancy of species sharing a feeding strategy and/or maximum size has been hypothesized to contribute to increased resilience of marine fish communities (the “portfolio effect”). A consis...

The changes to Article 35 of the Fisheries Act include a new phrase that contains undefined terminology, i.e., “No person shall carry on any work, undertaking or activity [w/u/a] that results in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery, or to fish that support such a fishery”. An ecological interpretati...

Multiple competing uses of continental-shelf environments have led to a proliferation of marine spatial planning initiatives, together with expert guidance on marine spatial planning. This study provides an empirical review of marine spatial plans, their attributes, and the extent to which the expert guidance is actually being followed. We performe...

a b s t r a c t A workshop of over 100 participants, balanced between fisheries management and biodiversity conservation backgrounds, reviewed and synthesised experiences regarding policy and institutional frameworks for use of MPAs in the contexts of fisheries management and conservation of biological diversity. The workshop concluded that althoug...

The ecosystem approach is being promoted as the foundation of solutions to the unsustainability of fisheries. However, because the ecosystem approach is broadly inclusive, the science for its implementation is often considered to be overly complex and difficult. When the science needed for an ecosystem approach to fisheries is perceived this way, s...

The Canadian Healthy Oceans Network (CHONe) research program formed to unite leading academic and government researchers with managers from Canada's national resource agencies to address an urgent need for better scientific information on marine biodiversity in Canada's Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic waters. Specifically, the network is producing di...

Concern about the impact of fishing on ecosystems and fisheries production is increasing (1, 2). Strategies to reduce these impacts while addressing the growing need for food security (3) include increasing selectivity (1, 2): capturing species, sexes, and sizes in proportions that differ from their occurrence in the ecosystem. Increasing evidence...

Greenstreet, S. P. R., Rogers, S. I., Rice, J. C., Piet, G. J., Guirey, E. J., Fraser, H. M., and Fryer, R. J. 2012. A reassessment of trends in the North Sea Large Fish Indicator and a re-evaluation of earlier conclusions. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 343–345. Previous analysis of the Large Fish Indicator, the basis for the North Sea “fis...

A workshop of over 100 participants, balanced between fisheries management and biodiversity conservation backgrounds, reviewed and synthesised experiences regarding policy and institutional frameworks for use of MPAs in the contexts of fisheries management and conservation of biological diversity. The workshop concluded that although fisheries mana...

Expert Workshop on addressing biodiversity concerns in sustainable Fisheries. Bergen, Norway, 7-9-December 2011

Daan, N., Gislason, H., Pope, J. G., and Rice, J. C. 2011. Apocalypse in world fisheries? The reports of their death are greatly exaggerated. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1375–1378. The catch-based methods underlying the forecast that by 2048 all commercially exploited stocks will have collapsed have been severely criticized, and a recent...

The four general components of an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) are reviewed. In taking account of environment forcing in stock dynamics, arguments are presented that effects of environmental forcing on growth, maturation and natural mortality are often more important to management than effects on recruitment. In holding fisheries accountab...

The Terms of Reference for WGECO in 2011 were more diverse, and also more focused on responses to other groups within ICES than has been the case in some previous years. There was also a considerable overlap in scope between the ToR. As in previous years, there was considerable focus on the science needed to support the objectives of the Marine Str...

A simple model of growth and smolting of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) parr in Western Arm Brook (northern Newfoundland) can account for the distributions of ages and lengths of random samples of sea-run smolts collected over 10 yr. The parameters of the model determine growth rate, survival rate, and the length that a parr must attain to smolt at...

A simple model of growth and smolting of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) parr, which can account for distributions of ages and lengths of random samples of sea-run smolts in Western Arm Brook, in northern Newfoundland, cannot account for distributions in Little Codroy River, in southwestern Newfoundland. Possible reasons for discrepancies include mor...

researchers from traditionally disparate disciplines and practitioners with typically incongruent mandates have begun working together to better understand and solve marine conservation and sustainable yield problems. Conservation practitioners are recognizing the need to achieve conservation goals in seascapes that are a source of livelihood and f...

Colonies of Common Puffins (Fratercula arctica), differing in numbers of breeding Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) present, also differed in puffin numbers, burrow placement, and burrow activity rate. All differences indicated that puffins avoided gulls. Sites differing in gull numbers did not differ, however, in puffin fledging success or weights...

This article 1) examines the policy context that created a demand for biogeographic information, 2) describes early national and regional experiences in applying biogeographic classifications, 3) extracts lessons about their usefulness, 4) introduces a broad-scale biogeographic classification for the open ocean and deep seabed called the Global Ope...

Greenstreet, S. P. R., Rogers, S. I., Rice, J. C., Piet, G. J., Guirey, E. J., Fraser, H. M., and Fryer, R. J. 2011. Development of the EcoQO for the North Sea fish community. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1–11. Development of the Ecological Quality Objective (EcoQO) for the North Sea demersal fish community is described. Size-based metrics...

The conventional selectivity paradigm is briefly reviewed and its performance examined from an ecosystem perspective. It is stressed that the overall (cumulative) selectivity of the harvest process in an ecosystem is the result of nested selection by fishers and fisheries of: (i) habitats; (ii) species assemblages; (iii) populations and (iv) indivi...

Rice, J., C. Arvanitidis, A. Borja, C. Frid, J. Hiddink, J. Krause, P. Lorance, S. A. Ragnarsson, M. Skold, B. Trabucco, 2010. Marine Strategy Framework Directive – Task Group 6 Report Seafloor integrity. EUR 24334 EN – Joint Research Centre, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities: 73 pp.

Integrating knowledge from across the natural and social sciences is necessary to effectively address societal tradeoffs between human use of biological diversity and its preservation. Collaborative processes can change the ways decision makers think about scientific evidence, enhance levels of mutual trust and credibility, and advance the conserva...

The natural mortality of exploited fish populations is often assumed to be a species-specific constant independent of body size. This assumption has important implications for size-based fish population models and for predicting the outcome of size-dependent fisheries management measures such as mesh-size regulations. To test the assumption, we cri...

Rochet, M-J., and Rice, J. C. 2010. Comment on “Purported flaws in management strategy evaluation: basic problems or misinterpretation?” by Butterworth et al. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 575–576. Simulation-based management strategy evaluation is a valuable tool, when appropriately implemented. Implementation, however, may not always have...