Crustaceans, which are highly susceptible to the effects of climate change, are critical for food security worldwide. Yet, management rarely evaluates the performance of alternative regulatory strategies under climate-driven life history change. This limits the development of climate-ready management plans, undermining fisheries sustainability. We compared the performance of alternative minimum legal size (MLS) regulations under shifts in growth and maturity for American lobster in the Gulf of Maine, the most valuable single-species commercial fishery in the United States. Across the life history change scenarios examined, increasing MLS improved status indicators, while decreasing MLS eroded status indicators for spawning stock biomass, legal abundance, landings, and exploitation rate. Our results demonstrate that protecting the lobster stock by increasing MLS improves fishery output, highlighting that conservation and industry goals can be complementary. This study exemplifies the utility of MLS as a conservation measure for crustacean fisheries under climate change.

中文翻译：

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在气候驱动的生活史变化下，产业和保护目标对于美国最有价值的渔业是互补的

甲壳类动物极易受到气候变化的影响，对全球粮食安全至关重要。然而，管理层很少评估气候驱动的生活史变化下替代监管策略的表现。这限制了适应气候变化的管理计划的制定，破坏了渔业的可持续性。我们比较了缅因湾美国龙虾（美国最有价值的单一品种商业渔业）生长和成熟度变化情况下替代最小法定尺寸 (MLS) 法规的表现。在所检查的生活史变化情景中，增加 MLS 改善了状态指标，而减少 MLS 则削弱了产卵种群生物量、合法丰度、上岸量和开采率的状态指标。我们的结果表明，通过增加 MLS 来保护龙虾种群可以提高渔业产量，强调保护目标和行业目标可以相辅相成。这项研究举例说明了 MLS 作为气候变化下甲壳类渔业保护措施的效用。