3 Ecosystem Indicators

There are many types of indicators, including those of the physical environment (e.g., climate), ecological, and socio-economic conditions. There is an entire professional journal devoted to the topic, called Ecological Indicators. Within marine systems, the most recent focus has been on developing indicators for ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). Significant recent literature on this topic includes the symposium on “Quantitative ecosystem indicators for fisheries management” hosted in Paris in 2004 by the SCOR Working Group 119, of which a selection of papers were published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science (Vol. 62(3), May 2005; see the Introduction by Cury and Christensen (2005) and the afterward by Daan (2005)). Additional important reviews are by Degnbol and Jarre (2004), Fulton et al. (2004), Jennings (2005), and Link (2005). Important contributions focussed on the North Pacific are those by PICES (Jamieson and Zhang, 2005; Kruse et al., 2006).