REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON MULTISPECIES ASSESSMENT METHODS

This is the first report of the newly created Working Group on Multispecies Assessment Methods (WGSAM). The group met at AZTI, San Sebastian (Spain) and reviewed multispecies and ecosystem modelling activities ongoing in each ICES ecoregion (including the North Sea, Mediterranean, Baltic Sea, Bay of Biscay, Iceland, Barents/Norwegian Seas, eastern Canada and USA). It is clear that virtually every ICES ecoregion has been subject to some modelling activity over the past 20 years, and a wide variety of different model types have been applied. The most common model applications have been variants of MSVPA, Ecopath with Ecosim and ‘extended single-species’ approaches. In many cases these models have been used to provide fisheries management advice.