There is, however, a critical trade-off

between selleck analytic tractability and realistic complexity, implying that sufficiently detailed biological models will often be too complicated for deriving an optimal HCR analytically. In such cases, it is necessary to sacrifice analytical rigor for biological realism and use numerical analyses instead. When setting up an HCR, policy-makers can express their resource-management objectives by emphasizing quantitative goals, which different scientific disciplines can then jointly help to assess. HCRs are readily based on such an approach, and accordingly offer various advantages for modern fisheries management, including (i) a reduced need for annual negotiations on how to set harvest quotas, (ii) the integration of interdisciplinary research into policy-making, and (iii) the strengthening of a constructive dialogue between policy-makers, stakeholders, and the scientific Ruxolitinib mw community. Harvest policies formulated through HCRs therefore represent

an ideal platform for policy makers and scientists on which to interact. Positive practical experiences with the HCR framework have been highlighted in recent reviews [28], [29] and [30]. The approach here is to use a detailed bio-economic model for the NEA cod fishery to evaluate the current HCR and to inform policy-makers about how this HCR performs compared to alternative HCRs that are optimized for different objectives. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses associated with HCRs devised to meet the different objectives. In doing so, this study aims to examine how these alternate HCRs for the management of NEA cod perform in comparison with the currently implemented HCR. Kovalev and Bogstad in 2005 [12] addressed the performance of the current HCR, however, their model is purely biological and thus does not include economic objectives. While their biological model operates at the population level, ours is individual-based.

This allows us to incorporate more biological detail and realistic complexity than other biological models used in previous bio-economic studies. This level of realism is needed: to evaluate the selleck screening library merits of any HCR, the used biological model must match the observational data it represents sufficiently well, if inferences for future fishing pressures are to be trusted. Analogous considerations apply to the used economic model. The bio-economic model presented below is the most detailed such model developed for NEA cod, and the first applied to evaluating HCRs. The bio-economic model considered here consists of two sub-models linked through an annual feedback loop (Fig. 3). The biological sub-model describes biological details such as processes of growth and maturation specific to NEA cod, while the economic sub-model describes economic details such as costs and harvest functions.