Publication Abstract

[Editorial paper for the FSBI 2023 Symposium Special Issue in Journal of Fish Biology, with no abstract. Below is a description of the Special Issue]

Understanding the factors driving fish behaviour, physiology, and survival is increasingly important during this period of unprecedented global change, given their implications for fisheries stability and ecosystem health. Habitat quality and quantity shape fish population dynamics and eco-evolutionary trajectories. Quantifying the habitat needs of fish across all life stages (and of their predators and prey) is challenging, however, and relies on diverse approaches such as field observations, laboratory experiments, genomics, chemical tracers, telemetry, and modelling. Successful integration of these data into management and policy requires open and constructive knowledge exchange between natural and social scientists, stakeholders, managers, and policymakers, and new tools to analyse and visualise these complex datasets. Building this social-ecological connectivity is particularly important in dynamic boundary systems (e.g. estuaries) and for protecting species characterised by trans-boundary movements (e.g. between rivers and seas, or across jurisdictional borders) if we are to maximise the benefits for nature and humans alike.

Here, we present a collection of papers tackling these topics in a Special Issue born from the Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI) 2023 Symposium “Fish Habitat Ecology in a Changing Climate” (see Figure 1), held at the University of Essex and co-convened by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas). The overarching theme was inspired by a Jack Jones Lecture by Jonathan Rice, “Understanding fish habitat ecology to achieve conservation” (Rice 2005), where he argues that “Habitat science can provide the unifying concepts to bring together ecological studies of physiological tolerances, predator avoidance, foraging and feeding, reproduction and life histories”. Here, we broaden that definition to include the downstream effects of habitat (and habitat loss or restoration) on ecosystem services such as human food supply and nutrient requirements, and how humans and habitats interact in the space of fisheries and ecosystem management.

Eoin O’Gorman, Rui Vieira^*, Anna Sturrock.

N/A