Indicators for marine ecosystems affected by fisheries

Abstract

The paper explores two types of indicators: Odum’s 24 attributes for describing the state of an ecosystem based on its maturity; and the fishing-in-balance (FIB) index for describing how ecosystem exploitation changes over time. Application of the FIB index to the Gulf of Thailand and the North Atlantic fisheries, describing the development in fisheries catches and their trophic levels over time, reveals that the index is straightforward to parameterize and adds an ecological dimension to fisheries catch series; it is a useful indicator for assessing the impact of fisheries on ecosystems.