Geolocated fish spawning habitats.

Fish spawning locations are a crucial input into fisheries management and conservation plans, and many stocks are especially sensitive to the environmental conditions within these localized zones. Globally collated data on spawning locations across many species has been unavailable, hindering global stock assessments and analyses of sustainable development and global environmental change. To address this, we created a geocoded fish spawning dataset using qualitative spawning information from FishBase and Science and Conservation of Fish Aggregations (SCRFA).

Underfished or unwanted?

Much blame cast upon fisheries policy may be misguided.

Climate variability reduces employment in New England fisheries.

Climate change is already affecting fish productivity and distributions worldwide, yet its impact on fishing labor has not been examined. Here I directly link large-scale climate variability with fishery employment by studying the effects of sea-surface pressure changes in the North Atlantic region, whose waters are among the world's fastest warming. I find that climate shocks reduce not only regional catch and revenue in the New England fishing sector, but also ultimately county-level wages and employment among commercial harvesters.

The small world of global marine fisheries: The cross-boundary consequences of larval dispersal.

Fish stocks are managed within national boundaries and by regional organizations, but the interdependence of stocks between these jurisdictions, especially as a result of larval dispersal, remains poorly explored. We examined the international connectivity of 747 commercially fished taxonomic groups by building a global network of fish larval dispersal. We found that the world's fisheries are highly interconnected, forming a small-world network, emphasizing the need for international cooperation.

New England Cod Collapse and the Climate.

To improve fishery management, there is an increasing need to understand the long-term consequences of natural and anthropogenic climate variability for ecological systems. New England's iconic cod populations have been in decline for several decades and have recently reached unprecedented lows. We find that 17% of the overall decline in Gulf of Maine cod biomass since 1980 can be attributed to positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).