Report of the Working Group on Fish Ecology

This report details the work undertaken for the second meeting of the ICES Working Group on Fish Ecology (WGFE).The work areas undertaken addressed the following issues: Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) for fishcommunities (Section 2), threatened and declining fish species and abundance-range size relationships (Section 3), preycomposition, food rations and gastric evacuation of North Sea gadoids (Section 4), fish habitat (Section 5), the relativecatchability of fishes in different survey gears (Section 6) and preliminary studies examining the status of North Seafish communities (Section 7).Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs) for fish communities are required by OSPAR, and analyses on various sizebasedmetrics have been undertaken by WGFE. It was originally suggested that size-based metrics would be primarilyresponsive to the effects of fishing activity, although current studies have indicated that environmental factors may alsoaffect such indices. Further studies are required to develop EcoQOs for fish communities, and it is suggested that a suiteof indicators, each addressing specific concerns or issues, and examined on the relevant spatial and temporal scale,should be developed. Additionally, studies to examine the relative importance of fishing and environmental variationshould be encouraged.