SLU Aqua at the ICES Annual Science Conference

Our researchers contributed with everything from talks to posters across a range of themes:

• Chris Griffiths gave a presentation in the session Controversial opinions in stock assessment and fisheries management.

• Max Lindmark presented in the session Managing for species distribution shifts.

• Eirik Ryvoll Åsheim spoke in the session What can we learn from long-term time series? with a focus on eels and analyses of SLU Aqua’s monitoring data on eels. In the same session, Birgit Koehler presented a poster on how coastal fish biodiversity has changed over recent decades.

• Josefin Sundin shared results and experiences on eel tracking in the session Fish tagging – the good, the bad, and the unknown, drawing on material from the Institute of Freshwater Research's archives, which even included records of eel tagging carried out as early as 1905!

The conference also showcased research outside the main theme sessions. For example, Hege Sande spoke about life-history changes in the western cod stock, while Eros Quesada presented improved models for estimating misreporting in fisheries. In addition, Josefin Sundin contributed a poster on follow-up studies of migration barriers for eels in rivers with hydropower, and Hege Sande presented on how citizen science can support lobster management.

The event was not only about science. At a joint side event between ICES, the European Commission (DG MARE), and HELCOM, the need for coordinated efforts to strengthen Baltic Sea fish stocks was discussed. Here, Lena Bergström joined a panel to highlight important priorities for the future.

Next year, the ICES Annual Science Conference will take place in Brest, France – and SLU Aqua is of course planning to be there as well.