Definitions
ABIOTIC is nonliving; specifically, the nonliving components of an ecosystem, such as temperature, humidity, the mineral content of the soil, etc.
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT – assumes that scientific knowledge is provisional and focuses on management as a learning process or continuous experiment where incorporating the results of previous actions allows managers to remain flexible and adapt to uncertainty (Grumbine 1994)
ANDROMOUS FISH are species such as salmon that are born in fresh water, migrate and feed in a marine environment, and return to natal freshwater systems to spawn.
BEHAVIOR is all of the acts an organism performs, as in, for example, seeking a suitable habitat, obtaining food, avoiding predators, and seeking a mate and reproducing.
BENTHIC is the bottom surfaces of aquatic environments.
BIODIVERSITY is the variety of genes, species, and ecosystems in a region. Each category describes different aspects of a living system and is scientifically measured in different ways to characterize the composition (identity and variety of living forms), structure (physical organization), and function (ecological and evolutionary processes) of the system.
BIOMASS is the dry or wet weight of organic matter comprising a group of organisms in a particular habitat.
BIOTIC – pertaining to life or living things, or caused by living organisms; or to biological factors or influences concerning biological activity.
BUFFERS – a strip of grass, shrubs, and trees used to separate a watercourse from an intensive land use area to protect water quality, prevent bank erosion, and maintain in-stream habitat.
BURDEN OF PROOF – The responsibility to demonstrate an activity will or will not lead to overfishing or negative effects on the ecosystem.
BYCATCH – Unintentional catch; i.e., catch that occurs incidentally in a fishery that intends to catch fish with other characteristics (e.g., size, species).
CARRYING CAPACITY – The numbers or biomass of resources that can be supported by an ecosystem.
CHRONIC INABILITY means the continuing or anticipated inability to meet escapement thresholds over a four to five year period, which is approximately the generation time of most salmon species.
CONSERVATION CONCERN means concern arising from a chronic inability, despite the use of specific management measures, to maintain salmon escapements for a stock above a sustained escapement threshold (SET); a conservation concern is more severe than a yield concern.
CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT – The rules, regulations, conditions, methods, and other measures (A) which are required and useful to rebuild, restore, or maintain any fishery resource and the marine environment; and (B) which are designed to ensure that: (i) a supply of food and other products may be taken, and that recreational benefits may be obtained, on a continuing basis; (ii) irreversible or long-term adverse effects on fishery resources and the marine environment are avoided; and (iii) there will be a multiplicity of options available with respect to future uses of these resources (NMFS 1996)
DENSITY DEPENDENT FACTOR is any factor influencing population regulation that has a greater impact as population density increases
DENSITY INDEPENDENT is any factor influencing population regulation that acts to reduce population by the same percentage, regardless of size
ECOLOGICAL NICHE is the sum total of an organism's utilization of the biotic and abiotic resources of its environment.
ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION is the transition in the species composition of a biological community, often following ecological disturbance of the community; the establishment of a biological community in an area virtually barren of life.
ECOLOGY is the study of how organisms interact with their environments.
ECOREACH -- a subunit of an ecoregion, determined based on gradients, barriers, and other physical, chemical, and biological features of the ecoregion.
ECOREGION -- a unit determined by hydrology, plant and animal community structure, and substrate (if any). This unit is used both for assessing the quality of a resource relative to appropriate reference conditions and for conservation of natural resources while supporting local economies and culture for the lasting benefit of people living in or associated with the ecoregion.
ECOSYSTEM the complex set of relationships among living resources, habitats, and residents of a region. An ecosystem includes people, wildlife, fish, shellfish, plants, wetlands, water, and any other living and non-living entities that are necessary for the ecosystem to function over the long-term.
ECOSYSTEM BASED MANAGEMENT– is an integrated approach to management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans. The goal of ecosystem based management is to maintain an ecosystem in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that it can provide the services humans want and need. Ecosystem based management differs from current approaches that usually focus on a single species, sector, activity or concern; it considers the cumulative impacts of different sectors (Scientific Consensus Statement on Marine Ecosystem Based Management 2005)
ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY– is protecting total native diversity (species, populations, ecosystems) and the ecological patterns and processes that maintain that diversity.
ENDANGERED SPECIES is a species that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
ENDEMIC is an organism found only in one particular location.
ENHANCEMENT means efforts applied to a stock of fish in the form of specific manipulation, such as hatchery augmentation or lake fertilization, to enhance its productivity above the levels that would naturally occur; “enhanced stock” includes an introduced stock, where no wild fish stock had occurred before, or a wild stock undergoing manipulation, but does not include a stock undergoing rehabilitation, which is intended to restore a stock’s productivity to a higher natural level.
ESSENTIAL FISH HABITAT means those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feed, or growth to maturity." (Magnuson-Stevens Act).
FISH HABITAT - The aquatic environment and the immediately surrounding terrestrial environment that, combined, afford the necessary biological and physical support systems required by fish species during various life history stages..
FOOD WEB is the elaborate, interconnected feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
GENETIC means those characteristics (genotypic) of an individual or group of salmon that are expressed genetically, such as allele frequencies or other genetic markers.
GENETIC VARIABILITY, referred to in some quarters as “genetic integrity”, for purposes of this planning effort can be thought of as maintenance ‑ in "an unimpaired condition" ‑ of that interaction of genes within a given gene pool which allows the stock to maintain a high level of natural adaptability.
GUILD is a group of species that perform more-or-less the same ecological role, making similar use of the same resource. Having more species per guild may increase the stability, and hence the productivity over time, of a marine community. Conversely, a loss of a number of species per guild could render a marine community more vulnerable to wild swings in stock sizes and productivity.
HABITAT CONCERN means the degradation of habitat that results in, or can be anticipated to result in, impacts leading to yield, management, or conservation concerns.
INDICATOR SPECIES are species that, by virtue of its reliable occurrence in a specific substrate, community, or ecosystem, is used as a gauge for the condition of that ecosystem.
INTRODUCED STOCK means a stock of fish that has been introduced to an area where that stock had not previously occurred and a salmon stock undergoing continued enhancement.
KEY SPECIES -- ecologically and/or economically important organisms that usually also are numerically abundant.
LIFE CYCLE is the entire sequence of stages in the life of an organisms, from the adults of one generation to the adults of the next.
LIFE HISTORY PATTERN is a group of traits, such as size and number of offspring, length of maturation, age at first reproduction, and the number of times reproduction occurs, that affect reproduction, survival, and the rate of population growth
LONG TERM means the fact that an ecosystem approach time frame extends beyond the next year, budget cycle, or election, to ensure that ecosystem dynamics occur within ranges that do not exceed the resilience of the system.
MARINE -- the sea realm, comprising more than 99% of Earth’s biosphere, and housing 31 of the 32 known animal phyla. Many conservation concepts developed for terrestrial systems must be considerably modified for marine systems due to the distinct physicochemical, biological, and valuation differences between the two types of systems.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINABLE YIELD – A management goal specifying the largest long-term average catch or yield (in terms of weight of fish) that can be taken, continuously (sustained) from a stock or stock complex under prevailing ecological and environmental conditions, without reducing the size of the population.
MULTIVARIATE is the term that describes statistical, mathematical, or graphical techniques that consider multiple variables simultaneously.
NUTRIENT LOADINGS -- refer primarily to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution derived from municipal and industrial wastewater (point sources) and in agricultural runoff (non-point source).
ORGANISM is an individual living thing, such as a bacterium, fungus, protist, plant or animal.
OPTIMUM YIELD – (A) the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems; (B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor; and (C) in the case of an overfished fishery, provides for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the maximum sustainable yield in such fishery (NMFS 1996).
OVERFISHED -- harvesting greater numbers of a species than are replenished by natural reproduction. The definition of overfishing should include at a minimum seven elements that define management targets and thresholds (status determination criteria, maximum fishing mortality threshold, minimum biomass threshold, biomass target, optimum yield, maximum rebuilding time period, control law or fishing mortality management strategy). (see Murawski, S.A. 2000. Definitions of Overfishing from an Ecosystem Perspective ICES Journal of Marine Sciences 57:649-658).
OVERFISHING– Fishing at a rate or level that jeopardizes the capacity of a stock or stock complex to produce maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis (NMFS 1996).
PREDATOR is an organism that eats other living organisms.
PREY is an organism eaten by another organism.
PRIMARY PRODUCTION is the creation of organic matter by plants through photosynthesis (using inorganic carbon, nutrients and external energy source) to form the base of the food chain.
QUOTA is a specified numerical objective for landings (excluding discard mortality), the attainment (or expected attainment) of which may cause closure of a fishery.
RECRUITMENT– a measure of the weight or number of fish which enter a defined portion of the stock such as fishable stock (those fish above the minimum legal size) or spawning stock (those fish which are sexually mature).
REGIME SHIFT – major changes in levels of productivity and reorganization of ecological relationships over vast oceanic regions which could be caused by various sources including climate variability or overfishing.
REHABILITATION means efforts applied to a stock to restore it to an otherwise natural level of productivity; “rehabilitation” does not include an enhancement, which is intended to augment production above otherwise natural levels.
RETURN means the total number of salmon in a stock from a single brood (spawning) year surviving to adulthood; because the ages of adult salmon (except pink salmon) returning to spawn varies, the total return from a brood year will occur over several calendar years; the total return generally includes those mature salmon from a single brood year that are harvested in fisheries plus those that compose the salmon stock’s spawning escapement; “return” does not include a run, which is the number of mature salmon in a stock during a single calendar year.
RUN means the total number of salmon in a stock surviving to adulthood and returning to the vicinity of the natal stream in any calendar year, composed of both the harvest of adult salmon plus the escapement; the annual run in any calendar year, except for pink salmon, is composed of several age classes of mature fish from the stock, derived from the spawning of a number of previous brood years.
to augment production above otherwise natural levels.
“FISH STOCK” means a locally interbreeding group of fish that is distinguished by a distinct combination of genetic, phenotypic, life history, and habitat characteristics.
SHORT TERM is the fact that many traditional management decisions are confined to a yearly, budgetary, or political cycle. Ecosystem processes occur on the scale of life spans of the ecosystem inhabitants, often on the order of decades or even centuries.
STANDARDIZATION -- refers to the need to have consistent usage of data format, ecological indicators, and language and acronyms across regions and agencies. It is necessary to instill conformity of accepted measurements or values that are applied to fisheries management through the use of similar indicators for data collection, data processing, and reporting such as with Geographic Information Systems.
STOCK ASSESSMENT is an evaluation of a stock in terms of abundance and fishing mortality levels and trends, and relative to fishery management objectives and constraints, if they have been specified.
STRESS (STRESSOR) -- refers to a factor, environmental or anthropogenic, that causes or drives a behavior or outcome.
SURPLUS PRODUCTION– is the total weight of fish that can be removed by fishing without changing the size of the population. It is calculated as the sum of the growth in weight of individuals in a population, plus the addition of biomass from new recruits, minus the biomass of mortality of animals lost to natural mortality, during a defined period (usually one year).
SUSTAINABILITY -- of a fishery must be defined in terms of goals within four separate categories. Together, these science and policy components interact transparently to form a dynamic and adaptive process: Biology – harvest is managed to maintain populations at sizes within defined ranges that take into account natural environmental stochasticity and observed effects of management and other human activities; Society – maintain or enhance diverse societal attributes of the fishery (cultural, aesthetic, spiritual, religious) for a specified planning time horizon (may include but not limited to ceremonial use, viewing aquatic species, fishing community heritage, dietary benefits, community diversity, ecosystem benefits, subsistence harvesting, area closures, promote environmental justice); Economic – the fishery constitutes a viable economic endeavor for a specified planning time horizon and yields a positive return to society measured as cumulative economic output that remains within a defined range; and Legal – the fishery must exist within a governance structure that ensures system integrity, including but not limited to regulatory authorities, treaties, constraints, requirements and infrastructure.
SUSTAINABLE HABITAT ---- is the physical space and collection of biotic and abiotic processes and entities that constitute a properly functioning ecosystem capable of maintaining itself within the bounds and patterns produced by natural disturbance processes (MacDonald D. et. al 2000)
“SUSTAINED ESCAPEMENT THRESHOLD” is a level of escapement, below which the ability of the salmon stock to sustain itself is jeopardized; in practice, SET can be estimated based on lower ranges of historical escapement levels, for which the salmon stock has consistently demonstrated the ability to sustain itself and is established by the Department in consultation with the board, as needed, for salmon stocks of management or conservation concern.”
TROPHIC LEVEL is the division of species in an ecosystem on the basis of their main nutritional source. The trophic level that ultimately supports all others consists of autotrophs, or primary producers.
TROPHIC STRUCTURE is the different feeding relationships in an ecosystem that determine the route of energy flow and the pattern of chemical cycling
WATERSHED is all of the land area that contributes surface run-off to the water supply of a body of water such as a river, stream, or lake.
“WILD STOCK” means a stock that originates in a specific location under natural conditions; “wild stock” may include an enhanced or rehabilitated stock if its productivity is augmented by supplemental means, such as lake fertilization or rehabilitative stocking.
WILD STOCK RESERVE” is defined by three conditions: (1) it must have no previous history of enhancement and is precluded from future enhancement; (2) it must be of a size sufficient to allow for substantial egg takes without posing serious threat to the viability of the stock; (3) it must be believed to be representative of the stocks of the area..
WETLAND is an area where saturation or repeated inundation with water determines the nature of the soils, the plants, and the animals of the area. Wetlands include wet meadows, lake and river banks, swamps, bogs, marshes, embayment, bayous, river flood plains, and estuaries.
“YIELD CONCERN” means a concern arising from a chronic inability, despite use of specific management measures, to maintain expected yields, or harvestable surpluses, above a stock’s escapement needs; a yield concern is less severe than a conservation concern.
Portions excerpted from the Ecosystem Management Report to MAFAC, May 2003 and the Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management – A Report to Congress by the Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, April 1999)