Progress with FishBase Data and Tools for Stock Assessment Rainer Froese ECOKNOWS, Heraklion

Completing Data (D6.3) For the ECOKNOWS case study species and congeners, FIN and AUTH have extracted data from 726 reference for – Fecundity (94) – Growth (278) – LWR (225) – Maturity (187) – Spawning (208) D:\Documents and Settings\Ecoknows_CS_Records_October8-1.xls

Assigning Data to Stocks (D6.3) Data in FishBase have been traditionally assigned to species, because stocks are often not well defined However, FIN has now started assigning data to stocks for the ECOKNOWS case study species, e.g. See `More information´, `Growth´ Then see `Stocks´, `Growth´

New Assessment Method (D3.x)

Web-Tool for Catch-MSY Interactive web-tool to estimate MSY from catch data and life-history traits in FishBase See

Harvest Control Rule based on Catch/MSY Harvest control rule for the Blue ling, based on the starting point of 0.39 Catch/MSY and 0.22 B/B msy. Note that catch should be mean over last years.

First Step towards Hierarchical Analysis (D ): Select appropriate studies Hierarchical analysis for the creation of prior distributions will draw, with decreasing weight, on data for the stock, the species, the Genus, and the Family A web-tool for easy selection of appropriate studies has been created: s&SpeciesName=morhua&fc=183

Main Current Challenge Find keen Bayesian statistician for several joined papers on – establishing (confirm) parameter distributions – establishing parameter correlations – establishing default confidence limits – web-tool for prior distributions For growth (L inf, K), LWR (a, b), maturity (L m, t m ), natural mortality (M),...

Ultimate Goal Have a Bayesian estimate of the maximum intrinsic rate of population increase, drawing on all available data. r max = f(t m, t max, M, S-R slope, K, L inf,...)

Thank You