Fisheries Stock Assessment Methods

  • Authors: Donna Dimarchopoulou, Konstantinos Touloumis, Athanassios Tsikliras
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Chapter 5. overview
This chapters included the theoretical background and methods for assessing the status of ecosystem components including commercial and non-commercial fish and shellfish, communities, habitats and megafauna (marine mammals, reptiles seabirds, large sharks and rays) through a series of indicators and metrics. A string of new tools (LBB, CMSY, AMSY, JARA) that have been designed for large-scale assessments in data-poor situations will be presented along with several community indices (e.g. N90, BESITO, mTLc) that are used to examine the impact of fishing on marine communities, while others that are related to climate change and variability (e.g. mean temperature of the catch, MTC). Three novel indicators and accompanying thresholds that have been proposed to detect and delineate ecosystem fisheries exploitation or ecosystem overfishing (EOF) will also be included. These indices (the Fogarty Index, the Friedland Index, and the Ryther Index) are based on widely available and readily interpreted catch and satellite data and link fisheries catch/landings to primary production using known limits of trophic transfer efficiency.

Donna Dimarchopoulou 

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
ABOUT Donna
I studied at the School of Biology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH - Greece), where I got my BSc in Biology (2011), my MSc in Hydrobiology-Aquaculture (2015), and my PhD in Fisheries Biology and Management (2020). Currently, I am a postdoctoral associate at AUTH and a guest investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA). My research focuses on marine fisheries and ecosystem dynamics, using modeling to assess the impacts of fishing regulations and climate change on the sustainability of marine populations.

Konstantinos Touloumis

ELGO Dimitra
ABOUT Konstantinos
Kostantinos Touloumis is an Assistant Researcher at the Fisheries Research Institute of ELGO Dimitra. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a PhD in Population Ecology. Over the past 15 years, he has participated in numerous research projects as a scientific collaborator at both the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Fisheries Research Institute of ELGO Dimitra. His work spans a broad range of topics, including population dynamics, landscape ecology, connectivity and coherence of ecological features, taxonomic and functional diversity, fisheries management, fisheries data collection and processing, and stock assessment.
Since 2017, he has been working under the Data Collection Framework for Greece at the Fisheries Research Institute in Kavala, serving as the lead scientific collaborator for the Fisheries Research Institute task group responsible for data processing, data quality, and data call preparation. He also coordinates Action 1F, which monitors the impacts of fisheries on the incidental bycatch of birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish.
He has participated in several stock assessment expert working groups and is the author of multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings.

Athanassios Tsikliras

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
About Athanassios
Athanassios Tsikliras teaches undergraduate zoology and fish biology courses and, since 2014, co-ordinates the postgraduate course on Fisheries Biology and Management. He has worked for Fisheries Research Institute of Kavala (1999-2004), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2005-2008), University of Thessaly (2009-2012). Since 2013 he serves as a full-time faculty member at the School of Biology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and since 2022 he is the Head of the Laboratory of Ichthyology. He is also the coordinator of the MarinOmics Group and Head of Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries Lab. His research focuses on fish biology and fisheries, stock assessment and management of Mediterranean fisheries, the effect of climate on marine populations, and ecosystem modelling/management. He has participated in 45 research projects and coordinated 15 of them, including the H2020 Project EcoScope. He served as a national expert in the Marine Strategy Coordination Group (2012-2015), as a reserve board member of Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (2010-2013), co-chaired the ICES Working Group on Small Pelagic Fishes, their Ecosystems and Climate Impact (2016-2019). He chaired the FishBase Consortium (2023-2024) and served as a vice-chair of Sea Around Us Advisory Board (2022-2025). He serves as an associate editor in 3 journals and member of the editorial board in other 6. He has (co)authored over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 books, 21 book chapters and over 220 other items. His work has received over 5800 citations (h-index=38, Google Scholar). 
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