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Assessing fisheries nutrient yields: The Northwest Atlantic, 1950–2014

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Abstract

Fisheries are important sources of nutrients for people, but fisheries science and management do not consider nutrient information. The result is that fisheries are conducted without knowledge of how exploited species portfolios produce nutrients, how these yields have changed over time, and how they may change in the future. Here, we develop approaches for nutrient-informed analysis, and illustrate their use by applying them to catches from northwest Atlantic fisheries from 1950 to 2014. Relative to catch weights, nutrient yields showed more change over time and greater degrees of concentration in fewer taxa. Species that were minor from a weight perspective were identified as key sources of specific nutrients. Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) emerge as a cornerstone of regional nutrient yields, with recent yields of some nutrients so disproportionately reliant upon herring as to indicate a potential lack of resilience. Insights such as these emphasize the need for nutrient informed approaches to fisheries assessment.

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Data Availability

Supplementary Information is available for this paper. Catch data obtained from Sea Around Us catch database SAU RFMO 10 v45 (Pauly and Zeller 2016). All taxon names, edible yield conversion rates, and nutrient yield conversion factors used in the analysis are presented in Table S1. The code used in this analysis is available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Villy Christensen and Daniel Pauly for reviewing earlier drafts of this paper.

Funding

Funding was provided by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant Nos.: NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2015-05105, Canada Graduate Scholarship), Killam Trusts (Grant No.: Doctoral Scholarship), University of British Columbia (Grant Nos.: Four Year Fellowship, Ocean Leaders Fellowship).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    John Driscoll & Kai M. A. Chan

  2. Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Kai M. A. Chan

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  1. John Driscoll
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  2. Kai M. A. Chan
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Correspondence to John Driscoll.

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Driscoll, J., Chan, K.M.A. Assessing fisheries nutrient yields: The Northwest Atlantic, 1950–2014. Ambio 52, 271–284 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01795-z

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