Demersal deep-sea fish assemblages from islands and seamounts are poorly described, even in the Hawaiian archipelago. Knowledge across all depths, in similar settings, is even sparser for other archipelagos in the central and western Pacific. However, recent remotely operated vehicle (ROV) explorations and archived video from human-occupied submersible dives conducted by the Hawai`i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) provide...

Oyster aquaculture gear may augment natural seafloor by providing structured habitat for economically important fish species. Underwater video census was used to assess fish abundance and community composition on eastern oyster ( Crassostrea virginica ) shelf and bag style aquaculture off-bottom cages and within natural rock reef habitat. During 2018, underwater cameras were mounted on four study cages at a dense shellfish far...

One of today’s greatest conservation challenges is balancing policies, laws, and management strategies established to achieve economic goals that depend on extracting ocean resources with those established to conserve marine biodiversity. We use the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument (NCSM) as a case study to explore the consequences of changing from a policy that prevents fishing to a fisheries managemen...

The concept of “vulnerable marine ecosystem” (VME) was included in United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 61/105 as part of an international effort to minimize the effects of seafloor fisheries on the high seas. However, defining a VME was left to be developed by technical guidance to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. In that venue certain categories of organisms were deemed to be indicator species, suggestin...

The American sand lance ( Ammodytes americanus , Ammodytidae) and the Northern sand lance ( A. dubius , Ammodytidae) are small forage fishes that play an important functional role in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (NWA). The NWA is a highly dynamic ecosystem currently facing increased risks from climate change, fishing and energy development. We need a better understanding of the biology, population dynamics and ecosystem role o...

Essential fish habitat (EFH) is defined under U.S. federal law, which mandates its protection. Current single‐species approaches to identifying EFH for suites of managed species have resulted in areas designated for protection that are so large that protecting fish habitat has been difficult in the context of fishery management. We evaluated the potential for simulated annealing, a type of mathematical optimization, as a tool...

A number of recent studies have linked post‐settlement survivorship of Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua ) with the complexity of the seafloor to which fish settle. Survivorship is greater in habitats of higher complexity (e.g., pebble‐cobble substratum with emergent epifauna> pebble‐cobble> sand), where cover provides shelter from predators. Fishing with mobile gear such as bottom trawls and dredges reduces the complexity of seaflo...

Fishing gear is used over large regions of continental shelves worldwide, but studies of the effects of fishing on seafloor habitats are generally conducted on a limited number of sediment types, making the wider application of particular studies difficult. Fishing gear can reduce habitat complexity by smoothing bedforms, removing emergent epifauna, and removing species that produce structures such as burrows. I developed a co...