Seminar Series Archive

Identifying self-sustaining populations within each fished species is essential for accurate assessment of ‘unit stocks’ and defining spatial management units. Advances in several technologies like genomics, electronic tagging, vessel monitoring, and statistical modeling have revived stock identification. Many stock assessment and management systems (e.g., SouthEast Data, Assessment, and Review, SEDAR) are routinely re-evaluating stock definitions. Spatially complex populations, climate-induced spatial shifts, and data limitations are challenges for stock identification, but accounting for spatial population structure can improve the performance of stock assessment and fishery management.

Will you please just listen to me? Have you ever wondered why fact-based explanations of ground-breaking scientific research don’t always change minds or behaviors? In this talk, social science communicator Anne Toomey will explain the roots of communication issues and suggest new ways to engage with the world. This talk will explore what leads to shifts in attitudes and behaviors, and how scientists and stakeholders can engage effectively with communities and policymakers for real-world change. 

There is a growing academic literature focused on enhancing the adaptive capacity of fisheries to environmental change. However, this literature has remained fairly abstract and high-level and has provided limited concrete guidance to on-the-ground fisheries managers and scientists. Our team has explored management implications of academic theories through interviews and surveys with U.S. regional council members and staffers, NMFS regional office staffers, and NMFS science center staff. We use insights from these practitioners to 1) define key adaptive traits for the U.S. fisheries management system going forward, 2) provide guidance for researchers in this field about how to make their work more directly useful to managers, and 3) describe key barriers to adaptation across the U.S. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation during which members of the public will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.

Fishermen and members of the Dolphin Wahoo Advisory Panel have described regional differences in dolphin catches at meetings and public hearings and some raised concerns about the decreasing abundance of dolphin, particularly in the waters off the Florida Keys. The Council will host a presentation to discuss recent research findings on regional trends in dolphin abundance from 1986 to 2022. The presentation will detail the methods used to generate these trends and illustrate how dolphin abundance varies along the Atlantic coast and throughout the western Atlantic Ocean.

Reef fish fisheries of the Southeast US are largely supported by the recruitment of young fish into the population. Stock assessments of multiple reef fishes in the South Atlantic region have demonstrated low recruitment for the last 10-15 years. This presentation will address current research conducted to understand the potential causes of low recruitment.   

The Council will host a presentation on electronic self-reporting programs in U.S. marine recreational fisheries by staff from The Nature Conservancy. The presentation will present information on the “appscape” used to collect information from recreational fisheries and identify successes, challenges, and lessons learned.

The Council will host a presentation on Fish Acoustic Detection Algorithm Research (FADAR) by staff from Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The presentation will present information on FADAR, a method to identify grouper and other fish potentially spawning or communicating. FADAR has been used to identify Nassau grouper in the South Atlantic region. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. The presentation is for informational purposes only and no management actions will be taken.

The Council will host a presentation on the reproductive resilience in fish, which is the ability of a population to maintain reproductive success to produce long-term population stability. Fish managed by the Council have diverse reproductive strategies and these reproductive strategies along with environmental variables and behavioral traits should be considered when developing assessments and management regulations. A case study on gag grouper will be presented.

The Council hosts a presentation on wind energy development in the South Atlantic region. The presentation will provide information on three wind energy projects planned in the South Atlantic region and the potential impacts of the projects. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation during which members of the public will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.

The Council will host a presentation from NOAA Fisheries on a Marine Recreational Information Program Fishery Effort Survey pilot study results and next steps via webinar on November 14, 2023. Study results include:

• “While the sequence of questions in the FES is based on a well-researched and standard survey practice to ask easier questions prior to more challenging questions, findings from our pilot study suggest this may not always be optimal.
• The FES asks respondents to report their fishing activity over a 2-month period and a 12-month period. In the pilot study, we changed the question order and first asked about fishing trips in the previous 12 months.
• Switching the sequence of questions resulted in fewer reporting errors and illogical responses, and effort estimates that were generally 30 to 40 percent lower for shore and private boat modes than estimates produced from the current design. However, results varied by state and fishing mode.
• Study limitations: the pilot study was conducted over 6 months with a smaller sample size than the full FES sample.”

The Council will host an oral history from a South Atlantic Fishery Management Council member on the southeastern rock shrimp fishery. The presentation will include information on her family’s history in the fishery, the development of the rock shrimp fishery off the coast of Florida, new innovations used in the fishery, and the effect of management regulations on the fishery. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.

The Council will host a presentation from the National Marine Fisheries Service on the value and benefits of on-demand fishing gear for the U.S. South Atlantic Black Sea Bass pot fishery and North Atlantic Right Whales. The presentation will discuss the history of the current area closure for pot fishing during North Atlantic Right Whales calving season to reduce entanglement risk. Since 2020, experimental on-demand gear has been authorized and trialed by commercial fishermen in the black sea bass pot fishery. The researchers will discuss the potential benefits of the new gear for fishermen and discuss how the new gear presents minimal entanglement risk to endangered North Atlantic Right Whales. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.

The Council will host a presentation from Gulf of Maine Research Institute staff entitled “Simulated larval dispersal of snapper-grouper species to evaluate the efficacy of spawning Special Management Zones.” The presentation involves five spawning Special Management Zones (SMZs) designated off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. These are marine protected areas that were explicitly designated to increase the spawning and recruitment of species in the snapper-grouper complex by protecting important spawning areas from fishing pressure. Each location was chosen as a potential source of high recruitment for the broader region. It was unclear, however, if the oceanographic conditions around the spawning SMZs favor recruitment success. Therefore, for several species, larval dispersal via ocean currents was simulated from each SMZ to investigate whether they can effectively serve as sources of recruitment for the snapper-grouper populations in the region.

The Council will host a presentation from Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute staff on the State Reef Fish Survey.  The presentation will include discussion about why the survey was created, how the survey is conducted, species that are included, and information on landings.

The Council will host a presentation from NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science which will present findings from multiple studies on artificial reefs, including the artificial and natural reef area in the South Atlantic region, ecological principles for siting artificial reefs, and analyses of relative fish abundance.

The Council will host a presentation from the Nature Conservancy on anglers’ release practices and attitudes towards descending devices in Southeast Florida and South Carolina.  This presentation will share highlights of research conducted in the South Atlantic region on the use and attitudes toward descending devices.  A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. Members of the public will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion. The presentation is for informational purposes only and no management actions will be taken.

This presentation will share highlights of research funded by NOAA’s Deep-Sea Coral Research & Technology Program between 2016-2019, and exploration and mapping conducted by NOAA Ocean Exploration in the South Atlantic region.  Highlights include a summary of discoveries from nine expeditions to collect seafloor imagery, including the largest known deep-sea coral reef province in the world, and major mapping advances on the Blake Plateau and surrounding areas.  A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. Members of the public will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion. The presentation is for informational purposes only and no management actions will be taken.

This presentation will address depredation, defined as the partial or complete removal of a target species by a non-target species.  Depredation is an increasingly topical human-wildlife conflict worldwide. Effectively managing and mitigating depredation requires a comprehensive characterization of the interaction; however, our current understanding of depredation is limited. Thus, the goals of this project were to combine content analysis, angler surveys, and molecular tools to characterize depredation in Florida’s recreational hook and line fishery. 

FISHstory is a citizen science pilot project to analyze historical photographs from the for-hire industry before many recreational data collection systems were in place.  The talk will focus on describing the catch from the historical photographs, the technique used to estimate lengths of king mackerel in the photos, and lessons learned during the pilot project. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.