The rise of invertebrate fisheries and the fishing down of marine food webs in California

Invertebrate fisheries are growing in importance worldwide and are now California's most important fisheries by both volume and value. There has been a 174% increase in the value of marine invertebrate fisheries in California since 1980. Although there is a long tradition of fishing for invertebrates in California, recently there has been a rise in their importance and they now (2008-2012) comprise four of the top five fisheries by value. In the 1980s, finfish fisheries dominated both the value and the volume of landings. Finfish and invertebrates were comparable in the 1990s in terms of both value and landings. Since 2000, there has been a shift toward invertebrate fisheries due to decreases in finfish fisheries, increases in invertebrate fisheries, and increases in novel or emerging invertebrate fisheries. The trends observed in California fisheries are consistent with the hypothesis that marine food webs have been fished down. In the 1980s (1980-1989), 90% of the top fisheries by value were for predators, while in the recent past almost half of the top fisheries species were from lower trophic levels such as herbivores and scavengers. This trend in the expansion of California invertebrate fisheries follows global fishery trends. In the eastern Pacific Ocean, there has been a 400% increase in the landings of invertebrate fisheries from 1950 to 2011. Despite this growth, fishery assessment and management of invertebrate fisheries are lagging behind. As we work to sustainably manage California invertebrate fisheries it is imperative that we continue to advance our knowledge of their biology, life history, and drivers of population fluctuations in a variable ocean environment.