Elsevier

Fisheries Research

Volume 252, August 2022, 106340
Fisheries Research

What is left and what was achieved? A time perspective of a pioneering project 20 years after the European Fish Ageing Network

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2022.106340Get rights and content

Abstract

The European Fish Ageing Network (EFAN) funded by the European Union, is reviewed, and assessed after a 20-year hiatus. The large number of scientists and technicians involved in this independent and informal network, and the time invested (four years), provided a significant advance in fish age estimation and methodologies. The results presented are based on two survey questionnaires sent to EFAN members, specifically to those who had been most actively involved in the programme. Overall, EFAN can be considered as successful as it fulfilled the aim of the FAIR (Fostering Awareness Inclusion and Recognition) program in improving collaboration both at a national and European levels in the field of sclerochronology. Adding to the success was that many survey participants reported a positive impact on both their creativity and scientific careers, particularly participants from university environments and the female members, and around 50% of the participants continued in their age-related research careers. These factors, as well as the positive scientific impact EFAN has had in various European countries (n = 16), point to a very successful programme. The aim of improving what is an objective approach required to interpret growth increments in calcified structures (otoliths) in fishes, is reflected in the various tools developed by EFAN, all of which are found in the many reports produced by the Network. Examples are seen in the quality control approach by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), where tools developed by EFAN have been key to their fisheries management approach. Our general impression is that a project with a lifetime of around four years in principle provides a suitable time period to develop age estimation tools, quality control routines, and working procedures to improve the use of fish age data for fish stock assessments. We argue however, that developing a functioning network requires more time than a conventional project. Therefore, to fully meet the aims of projects such as EFAN, a period of between 10 and 15 years is a more appropriate time frame for these types of programmes to run. A longer time scale can help ensure recommendations are regularly followed, can provide more confidence in on-going routine age estimation data, and so achieve a significant improvement in the application of ageing methods. In turn a more accurate and robust scientific outcome would be available for European fish stock assessments.

Introduction

The purpose of European Commission programmes such as FAIR (Fostering Awareness Inclusion and Recognition) was to encourage the exchange and integration of national, community and European research activities by appropriate means. It supported closer integration of research conducted in the European Union (EU) Member States, joint community projects and international cooperation fora. While many of these projects were and continue to be supported, the long-term consequence of this support to Europe, scientists and cooperation efforts are still to be explored.

Since the 1970s, most scientific advice on the management of fish species is based on age-based stock assessment, resulting in the age determination of more than a million fish/year based on otolith interpretation (Campana, 2001). Consequently, there are many national laboratories around the European Union (EU) providing age data to the international management bodies, in particular, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), that conducts assessments. While the use of calcified structures in fish age estimation has a long history (Hederström, 1759), by the 1990s there was still a perception that, depending on the fish stocks, age reading was in many cases not sufficiently objective to ensure consistent and reliable age estimates throughout the many European countries that collected these data (Vitale et al., 2019). Within the respective ICES Working Groups using age data it had become apparent that differences existed in the techniques and interpretation of the calcified structures amongst the European laboratories, having a direct impact on the overall reliability of the age estimation of fish and thereby on the assessments of several fish stocks (Vitale et al., 2019).

The European Fish Ageing Network (EFAN) was a European Commission Concerted Action (CA), sponsored by the FAIR Programme (FAIR PL. 96.1304). The objectives of EFAN were to develop, conduct and coordinate fish age reading techniques, collaborative research and training, and thereby ensure that age estimation became a more reliable element of the assessments underlying scientific management advice on fisheries and environmental resources (Appelberg et al., 2005).

The EFAN project consisting of five thematic groups (see Appelberg et al., 2005 for more details), that resulted in 17 organised workshops (WSs) and scientific meetings between 1997 and 2000. The Project aimed to improve the age reading procedures in European research institutes and universities. It promoted this aim by establishing better communication and co-operation among the scientists and technicians performing age estimation, including exchanging experience of different preparation and reading practices among labs, demonstrating innovative techniques and suggesting, practising and introducing procedures of quality control. The Project was large (16 nations participating, 35 different Research Institutes and Universities, 99 scientists) and judged by the high number of reports, publications, and books, was considered a success at the time of completion (Appelberg et al., 2005). In addition, the EFAN website that operated from the start of the Project had databases that contained information on software and hardware for examination of otoliths and scales, experts in age estimation techniques and species studied at various institutions, reference collections for reader consistency and digital image references. Unfortunately, these databases are no longer available, however, the reports produced in the Project (see Appendix A in Appelberg et al., 2005) are available at https://nimbus.imedea.uib-csic.es/s/B3S5ndFXAmPPKzb.

The objective of this paper is to review the results of the EFAN network with the perspective of time. Considering the financial input of the Project (429 000 € in total) by the European Union, number of people involved, and time invested, the question remains, what was the impact of this commitment, both at the time of the Project and the present. Moreover, this study takes a self-critical look at the Project and its design from the perspective of 20 years after completion to help improve future projects of such nature, magnitude, and ambition. Indeed, we end this study by asking if projects of this kind are still needed and, if so, how such projects could be better designed in order to accomplish such a task.

Section snippets

Material and methods

This paper is based on the results from the two questionnaires provided to the former EFAN participants in 2020 and 2021 (see Appendix A and B). Although approximately 120 scientists, technicians and students from 36 different research institutes and universities across Europe participated in EFAN, many did not participate throughout the entire duration of the Project. Consequently, only 48 persons were contacted who had participated in more than one of the plenary meetings and were believed to

Questionnaires results

Regarding the results of the questionnaires of the 48 persons considered as most active and answering the questionnaire, 10 worked at a university, while the remaining were linked to a research institute. All participants were working on fish otoliths. While a great number of participants were regularly and routinely involved in age reading for fish stock assessment purposes, others were more involved in the research of otolith annuli formation, otolith microchemistry, image analysis processes,

Discussion

In Appelberg et al. (2005) the Project was evaluated and summed up in the following way:

  • The openness and transparency of EFAN has brought us a co-operative, independent and informal network. For the first time age reading problems have found a common platform in Europe.

  • The quality and frequency of EFAN reports and value of the databases are already widely appreciated and recognised in national and regional circles. These databases have clearly fulfilled a previously unrecognised need, for

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

We like to thank all our colleagues who responded to the questionaries and made it possible to look back on this special project. A special thanks to Jane Aanestad Godiksen (IMR, Bergen) for her comments to an early version of the manuscript and input on the present use of EFAN products and the two reviewers (One anonymous and the Dr. Allen Hia Andrews) for valuable help in improving the manuscript.

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Present: BGMS, Stenåsveien 34, 4846 Arendal, Norway

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Present: 200 rue des Sorbiers, Rimouski, Québec G5L 8Y7, Canada

3

Present: MECC, Fern, Forfar, Scotland, UK

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