Search results

Abstract
Background
As the production of scientific manuscripts and journal options both increase, the peer review process remains at the center of quality control. Recent advances in understanding reviewer biases and behaviors along with electronic manuscript handling records have allowed unprecedented investigations into the peer review process.

Methods
We examined a sample of six journals within the field of fisheries science (and all published by the American Fisheries Society) specifically looking for changes in reviewer invitation rates, review time, patterns of reviewer agreements, and rejection rates relative to different forms of blinding.

Results
Data from 6,606 manuscripts from 2011–2021 showed significant increases in reviewer invitations. Specifically, four journals showed statistically significant increases in reviewer invitations while two showed no change. Review times changed relatively little (± 2 weeks), and we found no concerning patterns in reviewer agreement. However, we documented a consistently higher rejection rate—around 20% higher—of double-blinded manuscripts when compared to single-blinded manuscripts.

Conclusions
Our findings likely represent broader trends across fisheries science publications, and possibly extend to other life science disciplines. Because peer review remains a primary tool for scientific quality control, authors and editors are encouraged to understand the process and evaluate its performance at whatever level can help in the creation of trusted science. Minimally, our findings can help the six journals we investigated to better understand and improve their peer review processes.

As socio‐environmental problems have proliferated over the past decades, one narrative which has captured the attention of policymakers and scientists has been the need for collaborative research that spans traditional boundaries. Collaboration, it is argued, is imperative for solving these problems. Understanding how collaboration is occurring in practice is important, however, and may help explain the idea space across a field. In an effort to make sense of the shape of fisheries science, here we construct a co‐authorship network of the field, from a data set comprising 73,240 scientific articles, drawn from 50 journals and published between 2000 and 2017. Using a combination of social network analysis and machine learning, the work first maps the global structure of scientific collaboration amongst fisheries scientists at the author, country and institutional levels. Second, it uncovers the hidden subgroups—here country clusters and communities of authors—within the network, detailing also the topical focus, publication outlets and relative impact of the largest fisheries science communities. We find that whilst the fisheries science network is becoming more geographically extensive, it is simultaneously becoming more intensive. The uncovered network exhibits characteristics suggestive of a thin style of collaboration, and groupings that are more regional than they are global. Although likely shaped by an array of overlapping micro‐ and macro‐level factors, the analysis reveals a number of political–economic patterns that merit reflection by both fisheries scientists and policymakers.

On 22 December 2019, the world of fisheries science and whale conservation lost one of its most ardent champions with the passing of Sidney J. Holt. His career began in 1947 at the age of 21. Ten years later, he and his colleague Ray Beverton published their authoritative monograph on quantitative fish population dynamics. In 1953, he joined the Fisheries Division of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and soon became heavily involved in assessing whale stocks under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission, a role that eventually led to advocating for animal rights and the cessation of commercial whaling. Later in life, he returned to fisheries assessment and management, particularly issues pertaining to the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union, where he advocated for fishing mortality less than that associated with maximum sustainable yield. This themed set consists of articles written by authors who knew and collaborated with Sidney, who may have met him once or twice at an international meeting, and who only knew of him via his reputation and massive and influential list of publications. Their articles address a wide range of topics relating to his work throughout his career and reflect, in part, the influence that his work has had on thinking about quantitative modelling of animal populations. ; Preprint

As climate change continues to impact New England's coastal ecosystems and their related fisheries, the need for measuring, projecting, interpreting, and applying those impacts for adaptive management is expanding. In New England, different types of formal and informal research efforts that involve collaboration between the fishing community and traditional university and government researchers continue to develop to address some of this need. To better understand the opportunities and challenges that these collaborative research efforts face, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 members of the fishing and research communities who are engaged in advancing New England climate change and fisheries science. Participants showed clear concern for the impacts of climate change on New England fisheries and about the insufficient availability of the necessary science to manage for those impacts. They also noted a number of challenges in collaborative research, including poor communication and a lack of trust among fishers, researchers, and decision makers, as well as a lack of perceived credibility for research coming out of the fishing community. We identify a number of opportunities for improving collaboration and communication among these groups, which could build upon the identified value of existing collaborations.

Not Available ; To u n d e rs tan d the dynamics of exploited populations, 1-cnowledge of their taxonomy and biology, the aquatic environment and the ecosystems is very important. Besides, knowledge on fishing gear technology, the fishing effort, the species wise and gear wise landing statistics is also essential for studying population dynamics. Broadly, making an integrated study of all these component subjects and then assessing the stock sizes of each species to offer advice and a range of options to the government for taking informed decisions on development and management, constitutes what is known as Fishery Science. ; Not Available