Management strategy evaluation (MSE) is the state-of-the-art approach for testing and comparing management strategies in a way that accounts for multiple sources of uncertainty (e.g. monitoring, estimation, and implementation). Management strategy evaluation can help identify management strategies that are robust to uncertainty about the life history of the target species and its relationship to other species in the food web. Small pelagic fish (e.g. anchovy, herring and sardine) fulfil an important ecological role in marine food webs and present challenges to the use of MSE and other simulation-based evaluation approaches. This is due to considerable stochastic variation in their ecology and life history, which leads to substantial observation and process uncertainty. Here, we summarize the current state of MSE for small pelagic fishes worldwide. We leverage expert input from ecologists and modellers to draw attention to sources of process and observation uncertainty for small pelagic species, providing examples from geographical regions where these species are ecologically, economically and culturally important. Temporal variation in recruitment and other life-history rates, spatial structure and movement, and species interactions are key considerations for small pelagic fishes. We discuss tools for building these into the MSE process, with examples from existing fisheries. We argue that model complexity should be informed by management priorities and whether ecosystem information will be used to generate dynamics or to inform reference points. We recommend that our list of considerations be used in the initial phases of the MSE process for small pelagic fishes or to build complexity on existing single-species models.

中文翻译：

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小型远洋鱼类管理战略评估的考虑

管理策略评估 (MSE) 是最先进的方法，用于测试和比较管理策略，以考虑多种不确定性来源（例如监控、估计和实施）。管理策略评估可以帮助确定对目标物种生活史及其与食物网中其他物种关系的不确定性有效的管理策略。小型中上层鱼类（例如鳀鱼、鲱鱼和沙丁鱼）在海洋食物网中发挥着重要的生态作用，并对 MSE 和其他基于模拟的评估方法的使用提出了挑战。这是由于它们的生态和生活史存在相当大的随机变化，从而导致大量的观察和过程的不确定性。在这里，我们总结了全球小型远洋鱼类 MSE 的现状。我们利用生态学家和建模师的专家意见，提请注意小型远洋物种的过程和观察不确定性的来源，提供这些物种在生态、经济和文化上具有重要意义的地理区域的示例。补充和其他生活史速率、空间结构和运动以及物种相互作用的时间变化是小型远洋鱼类的关键考虑因素。我们讨论了将这些工具构建到 MSE 过程中的工具，并提供了来自现有渔业的示例。我们认为模型复杂性应该由管理优先级以及生态系统信息是否将用于产生动态或告知参考点来告知。