Fishery management frequently involves precautionary buffering for scientific uncertainty. For example, a precautionary buffer that scales with scientific uncertainty is used to calculate the acceptable biological catch downward from the overfishing limit in the US federal fishery management system. However, there is little empirical guidance to suggest how large buffers for scientific uncertainty should be. One important component of uncertainty is variation among different assessments of the same stock in estimates of management-relevant quantities. We analysed commercially exploited marine fish and invertebrate stocks around the world and developed Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify inter-assessment variation in terminal year biomass and fishing mortality estimates, reference points, relative biomass and fishing mortality estimates, and overfishing limits. There was little evidence of inter-assessment bias; stock assessment estimates in the terminal year of the assessment were not consistently higher or lower than estimates of the same quantities in future years. However, there was a tendency for extreme values from the terminal year to be pulled closer to the mean in future years. Inter-assessment variation in all estimates differed across regions, and a longer inter-assessment interval generally resulted in greater variation. Inter-assessment uncertainty was greatest for estimates of the overfishing limit, with coefficients of variation ranging from 17% in Europe (non-EU) to 107% for Pacific Ocean pelagic stocks. Because inter-assessment variation is only one component of scientific uncertainty, we suggest that these uncertainty estimates may provide a basis for determining the minimum size of precautionary buffers.

中文翻译：

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库存评估的建议有多一致？海洋鱼类和无脊椎动物种群评估间偏差和不确定性的经验估计

渔业管理经常涉及对科学不确定性的预防性缓冲。例如，在美国联邦渔业管理系统中，使用与科学不确定性成比例的预防性缓冲区来计算可接受的生物捕捞量，低于过度捕捞限制。然而，几乎没有实证指导表明科学不确定性的缓冲区应该有多大。不确定性的一个重要组成部分是在管理相关数量的估计中对同一种群的不同评估之间的差异。我们分析了世界各地商业开发的海洋鱼类和无脊椎动物种群，并开发了贝叶斯分层模型来量化末年生物量和捕捞死亡率估计、参考点、相对生物量和捕捞死亡率估计的评估间变化，和过度捕捞限制。几乎没有评估间偏差的证据；评估最后一年的库存评估估计数并不总是高于或低于未来几年相同数量的估计数。然而，在未来几年中，终端年份的极值有被拉近平均值的趋势。所有估计的评估间差异因地区而异，较长的评估间间隔通常会导致更大的差异。对于过度捕捞限制的估计，评估间的不确定性最大，变异系数从欧洲（非欧盟）的 17% 到太平洋远洋种群的 107% 不等。因为评估间差异只是科学不确定性的一个组成部分，