Single-species and ecosystem approaches to fisheries are often presented as being diametrically opposed. I will use the example of the U.S. Atlantic sea scallop fishery to show how these two approaches can be viewed as being complentary. The history of this fishery can be divided into three stanzas: first, the period when the fishery was developing, then a period characterized by long-term declines in biomass and catch rates due to overfishing, and finally recovery after effective controls were established, including limits on fishing effort, and rotational as well as long-term fishery closed areas. I will then discuss environmental influences on sea scallop population and fisheries dynamics, including the role of predators, food supply, larval transport, climate and acidification.

Dvora Hart received a B.S. fromt he University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, and has been a research scientist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, MA since 1999. Her research interests inlcude mathematical and theoretical ecology, as well as quantitative fisheries science.

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