Research projects
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You can use the Project Search Tool below to browse over the staff’s research projects, including their brief summaries, that are currently under way, or planned for the near future and funded under the 5-year Strategic Science Plan (2019-2023). The summaries include, for each project, background information, a work plan, and a progress report, as well as details of its relevance and purpose, external collaborators, duration, and deliverables; also, for existing projects, an update on activities since the previous year’s report.
This information can also be found on the IATTC-98b-Staff activities and research plan. -
01 Jan 2019 - 01 Jul 2019FundedObjectives:
- Build upon the previous collaborative work and continue to develop dorado stock assessment methodologies
- Expand the MSE for dorado by evaluating alternative reference points and harvest control rules.
01 May 2022 - 31 May 2024FundedObjectives:
- Evaluate the reliability of the data obtained on identification of FADs.
- Develop spatial-temporal indices and statistics of tropical tuna purse-seine fishery distribution in the EPO.
- Understand the dynamics of the purse-seine fishing operations and fishing behavior in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
01 Jun 2018 - 01 Jul 2020FundedObjectives:
- Evaluate the reliability of the data obtained on identification of FADs.
- Investigate methods to determine purse-seine set type from various sources of data (i.e. Observers, vessel logbooks, canneries, etc.).
- Evaluate the relationship between catch and number of FAD deployments.
- Investigate more precise measures of fishing capacity that take into consideration days fished, set type, and vessel characteristics.
- Investigate the relationship between fishing mortality and fleet capacity.
- Evaluate alternative management measures such as closed areas, individual vessel limits, and gear restrictions.
01 May 2022 - 31 May 2024FundedObjectives:
- Understand the nature of mobulid bycatch in the purse seine fishery, and in particular, the effect of different operational characteristics on mobulid bycatch rates.
- Build on and inform ongoing research to host workshops with purse seine skippers and crew to identify feasible onboard gear, handling and release modifications to reduce mobulid mortality.
- Tailor bycatch mitigation options for variability in vessel and gear type, as well as the operational details of the vessel.
01 Jun 2020 - 01 Jul 2023FundedObjectives:
- Determine the feasibility of echo-sounder buoy data to be used for developing alternative abundance indices for tropical tuna.
- Develop preliminary catch-independent abundance indices for tropical tunas.
- Evaluate the usefulness of these indices to inform and complement traditional stock assessment and other projects of interest for the Commission (e.g. MSE, habitat models).
- Explore the future availability of echo-sounder buoy data in the region for scientific purposes.
- Develop strategies and plans to improve the robustness of results and help interpretation.
- Recommend new feasible technological developments to buoy manufacturers.
01 Jul 2019 - 31 Dec 2024FundedObjectives:
Build and evaluate an agent-based, adaptive fishing fleet model as an analytic tool to support management01 Jun 2018 - 01 Oct 2022FundedObjectives:
- To use presence-only catch data to develop habitat models for all bycatch species caught in EPO tuna fisheries to facilitate mapping of their geographic range.
- To make distribution maps available in a format suitable for use as base maps for ecological risk assessment models (PSA, EASI-Fish)
01 Jan 2018 - 31 Dec 2021FundedObjectives:
- To develop a spatially-explicit model for quantifying the cumulative impact of multiple fisheries on data-limited bycatch species in the EPO
- To use the model to prioritize potentially vulnerable species for further research and/or management
- To design the model in a user-friendly format to maximize uptake and utilization by IATTC CPCs
01 Jan 2018 - 31 Dec 2018FundedObjectives:
- To improve the currently used PSA methodology by reducing the number of redundant biological attributes without compromising PSA results.
- Apply the new PSA methodology to existing assessments of the purse seine fishery (class 6 vessels) and the industrial longline fishery.
- To prepare manuscripts for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal for (1) improved PSA methodology, and (2) purse seine and longline fishery PSA results.
01 Nov 2021 - 31 May 2022FundedObjectives:
- To use the EASI-Fish ERA approach to assess the vulnerability status of elasmobranch species caught as bycatch in EPO fisheries
- To identify vulnerable species using traditional biological reference points