Changing how we approach fisheries: A first attempt at an operational framework for ecosystem approaches to fisheries management

The increasing need to account for the many factors that influence fish population dynamics, particularly those external to the population, has led to repeated calls for an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). Yet systematically and clearly addressing these factors, and hence implementing EAFM, has suffered from a lack of clear operational guidance. Here, we propose 13 main factors (shift in location, migration route or timing, overfishing (three types), decrease in physiology, increase in predation, increase in competition, decrease in prey availability, increase in disease or parasites and a decline in habitat quality or habitat quantity) that can negatively influence fish populations via mechanisms readily observable in ~20 population features. Using these features as part of a diagnostic framework, we develop flow charts that link probable mechanism(s) underlying population change to the most judicious management actions. We then apply the framework for example case studies that have well‐known and documented population dynamics. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to provide a clearly defined matrix of all the probable responses to the most common factors influencing fish populations, and to examine possible diagnostics simultaneously, comparatively and relatively in an attempt to elucidate the most probable mechanisms responsible. The framework we propose aims to operationalize EAFM, thereby not only better diagnosing factors influencing fish populations, but also suggesting the most appropriate management interventions, and ultimately leading to improved fisheries. We assert the framework proposed should result in both better use of limited analytical and observational resources and more tailored and effective management actions.     

Describing ecosystem contexts with single‐species models: a theoretical synthesis for fisheries

Fished populations exist within complex ecosystems but are typically assessed using single‐species models. It is often lamented that stock assessments rarely account for other ecosystem components explicitly, but in most fisheries there are clear difficulties in implementing data‐intensive ecosystem‐based assessment approaches. Addressing these competing challenges requires prioritizing investments in expanded assessment frameworks. To provide high‐level conceptual guidance to such prioritization, here we use general analytical theory to identify (i) characteristics of fish stocks that tend to facilitate or inhibit the precision and accuracy of reference points from single‐species assessments, (ii) characteristics of ecosystem components that introduce the greatest bias/imprecision into single‐species reference points and (iii) warning signs within single‐species frameworks that important ecosystem components may not be adequately accounted for. We synthesize and expand on theories from various branches of applied mathematics addressing analogous questions. Our theory suggests that (i) slow population dynamics (relative to the dynamics of other ecosystem components) and a wide range of abundance observations promote precision and accuracy of single‐species reference points; (ii) ecosystem components that strongly influence the focal stock's growth, and change on similar timescales as the focal stock's abundance, introduce the greatest bias/imprecision to single‐species reference points; and (iii) signs of potential challenges for single‐species assessment include fast population dynamics, ‘hydra effects’ (i.e. abundance and fishing pressure simultaneously increase), and recently detected extinctions, invasions or regime shifts in closely connected ecosystem components. Our results generalize to other levels of abstraction and provide strategic insights complementing tactical simulation approaches such as management strategy evaluation.     

Strong fisheries management and governance positively impact ecosystem status

Fisheries have had major negative impacts on marine ecosystems, and effective fisheries management and governance are needed to achieve sustainable fisheries, biodiversity conservation goals and thus good ecosystem status. To date, the IndiSeas programme (Indicators for the Seas) has focussed on assessing the ecological impacts of fishing at the ecosystem scale using ecological indicators. Here, we explore fisheries ‘Management Effectiveness’ and ‘Governance Quality’ and relate this to ecosystem health and status. We developed a dedicated expert survey, focused at the ecosystem level, with a series of questions addressing aspects of management and governance, from an ecosystem‐based perspective, using objective and evidence‐based criteria. The survey was completed by ecosystem experts (managers and scientists) and results analysed using ranking and multivariate methods. Results were further examined for selected ecosystems, using expert knowledge, to explore the overall findings in greater depth. Higher scores for ‘Management Effectiveness’ and ‘Governance Quality’ were significantly and positively related to ecosystems with better ecological status. Key factors that point to success in delivering fisheries and conservation objectives were as follows: the use of reference points for management, frequent review of stock assessments, whether Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) catches were being accounted for and addressed, and the inclusion of stakeholders. Additionally, we found that the implementation of a long‐term management plan, including economic and social dimensions of fisheries in exploited ecosystems, was a key factor in successful, sustainable fisheries management. Our results support the thesis that good ecosystem‐based management and governance, sustainable fisheries and healthy ecosystems go together.     

Model uncertainty in the ecosystem approach to fisheries

Fisheries scientists habitually consider uncertainty in parameter values, but often neglect uncertainty about model structure, an issue of increasing importance as ecosystem models are devised to support the move to an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF). This paper sets out pragmatic approaches with which to account for uncertainties in model structure and we review current ways of dealing with this issue in fisheries and other disciplines. All involve considering a set of alternative models representing different structural assumptions, but differ in how those models are used. The models can be asked to identify bounds on possible outcomes, find management actions that will perform adequately irrespective of the true model, find management actions that best achieve one or more objectives given weights assigned to each model, or formalize hypotheses for evaluation through experimentation. Data availability is likely to limit the use of approaches that involve weighting alternative models in an ecosystem setting, and the cost of experimentation is likely to limit its use. Practical implementation of an EAF should therefore be based on management approaches that acknowledge the uncertainty inherent in model predictions and are robust to it. Model results must be presented in ways that represent the risks and trade‐offs associated with alternative actions and the degree of uncertainty in predictions. This presentation should not disguise the fact that, in many cases, estimates of model uncertainty may be based on subjective criteria. The problem of model uncertainty is far from unique to fisheries, and a dialogue among fisheries modellers and modellers from other scientific communities will therefore be helpful.     

Sea cucumber fisheries: global analysis of stocks,management measures and drivers of overfishing

Worldwide, most sea cucumber fisheries are ineffectively managed, leading to declining stocks and potentially eroding the resilience of fisheries. We analyse trends in catches, fishery status, fishing participation and regulatory measures among 77 sea cucumber fisheries through data from recent fishery reports and fishery managers. Critical gaps in fisheries biology knowledge of even commonly targeted species undermine the expected success of management strategies. Most tropical fisheries are small‐scale, older and typified by numerous (>8) species, whereas temperate fisheries are often emerging, mono‐specific and industrialized. Fisher participation data indicated about 3 million sea cucumber fishers worldwide. Fisher participation rates were significantly related to the average annual yield. permanova analysis showed that over‐exploited and depleted fisheries employed different sets of measures than fisheries with healthier stocks, and a non‐metric multidimensional scaling ordination illustrated that a broad set of regulatory measures typified sustainable fisheries. SIMPER and regression tree analyses identified that the dissimilarity was most related to enforcement capacity, number of species harvested, fleet (vessel) controls, limited entry controls and rotational closures. The national Human Development Index was significantly lower in countries with over‐exploited and depleted fisheries. Where possible, managers should limit the number of fishers and vessel size and establish short lists of permissible commercial species in multispecies fisheries. Our findings emphasize an imperative to support the enforcement capacity in low‐income countries, in which risk of biodiversity loss is exceptionally high. Solutions for greater resilience of sea cucumber stocks must be embedded within those for poverty reduction and alternative livelihood options.     

Trap modification opens new gates to achieve sustainable coral reef fisheries

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Beyond Individual Transferrable Quotas: methodologies for integrating ecosystem impacts of fishing into fisheries catch rights

While there has been a growing concern for the adverse ecological impacts of fishing, progress on incorporating these into operational fisheries management has been slow. Many fisheries management organizations have addressed the problem of overharvesting and over‐capitalization first. In this domain, the question of access regulation has gained growing recognition as a key dimension of fisheries sustainability, leading to recommendation and progressive implementation of rights‐based systems, in particular Individual Transferrable Quotas (ITQs). While adjustments in fishing capacity resulting from the implementation of these systems may entail a reduction in some unwanted ecosystem impacts of fishing, it is also recognized that they will not be sufficient to achieve the ecological outcomes increasingly demanded by the global community. There is thus a need to examine the possibilities for a common management framework for dealing with both over‐capitalization of fisheries and adverse ecological effects of fishing. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of incorporating greater ecosystem goods and services into ITQ policy instruments initially designed with a narrow focus on commercial target species. We consider the advantages and limitations of alternative approaches in this respect and identify some of the practical issues associated with the different alternatives, in particular the underpinning knowledge requirements. We argue that given the need for increasingly streamlined management processes, further investigation into practical ways forward in this domain is crucial if management of fisheries is to achieve economic efficiency while fully encompassing the ecologically sustainable development objectives of ecosystem‐based fisheries management.     

Indicators to support an ecosystem approach to fisheries

Indicators are needed to support the implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), by providing information on the state of the ecosystem, the extent and intensity of effort or mortality and the progress of management in relation to objectives. Here, I review recent work on the development, selection and application of indicators and consider how indicators might support an EAF. Indicators should guide the management of fishing activities that have led to, or are most likely to lead to, unsustainable impacts on ecosystem components or attributes. The numbers and types of indicators used to support an EAF will vary among management regions, depending on resources available for monitoring and enforcement, and actual and potential fishing impacts. State indicators provide feedback on the state of ecosystem components or attributes and the extent to which management objectives, which usually relate to state, are met. State can only be managed if the relationships with fishing (pressure) and management (response) are known. Predicting such relationships is fundamental to developing a management system that supports the achievement of objectives. In a management framework supported by pressure, state and response indicators, the relationship between the value of an indicator and a target or limit reference point, reference trajectory or direction provides guidance on the management action to take. Values of pressure, state and response indicators may be affected by measurement, process, model and estimation error and thus different indicators, and the same indicators measured at different scales and in different ways, will detect true trends on different timescales. Managers can use several methods to estimate the effects of error on the probability of detecting true trends and/or to account for error when setting reference points, trajectories and directions. Given the high noise to signal ratio in many state indicators, pressure and response indicators would often guide short‐term management decision making more effectively, with state indicators providing longer‐term policy‐focused feedback on the effects of management action.     

Efficiency of fisheries is increasing at the ecosystem level

Managing fisheries presents trade‐offs between objectives, for example yields, profits, minimizing ecosystem impact, that have to be weighed against one another. These trade‐offs are compounded by interacting species and fisheries at the ecosystem level. Weighing objectives becomes increasingly challenging when managers have to consider opposing objectives from different stakeholders. An alternative to weighing incomparable and conflicting objectives is to focus on win–wins until Pareto efficiency is achieved: a state from which it is impossible to improve with respect to any objective without regressing at least one other. We investigate the ecosystem‐level efficiency of fisheries in five large marine ecosystems (LMEs) with respect to yield and an aggregate measure of ecosystem impact using a novel calibration of size‐based ecosystem models. We estimate that fishing patterns in three LMEs (North Sea, Barents Sea and Benguela Current) are nearly efficient with respect to long‐term yield and ecosystem impact and that efficiency has improved over the last 30 years. In two LMEs (Baltic Sea and North East US Continental Shelf), fishing is inefficient and win–wins remain available. We additionally examine the efficiency of North Sea and Baltic Sea fisheries with respect to economic rent and ecosystem impact, finding both to be inefficient but steadily improving. Our results suggest the following: (i) a broad and encouraging trend towards ecosystem‐level efficiency of fisheries; (ii) that ecosystem‐scale win–wins, especially with respect to conservation and profits, may still be common; and (iii) single‐species assessment approaches may overestimate the availability of win–wins by failing to account for trade‐offs across interacting species.     

Assessing and managing data‐limited ornamental fisheries in coral reefs

Coral reefs support numerous ornamental fisheries, but there are concerns about stock sustainability due to the volume of animals caught. Such impacts are difficult to quantify and manage because fishery data are often lacking. Here, we suggest a framework that integrates several data‐poor assessment and management methods in order to provide management guidance for fisheries that differ widely in the kinds and amounts of data available. First, a resource manager could assess the status of the ecosystem (using quantitative metrics where data are available and semi‐quantitative risk assessment where they are not) and determine whether overall fishing mortality should be reduced. Next, productivity susceptibility analysis can be used to estimate vulnerability to fishing using basic information on life history and the nature of the fishery. Information on the relative degree of exploitation (e.g. export data or ratios of fish density inside and outside no‐take marine reserves) is then combined with the vulnerability ranks to prioritize species for precautionary management and further analysis. For example, species that are both highly exploited and vulnerable are good candidates for precautionary reductions in allowable capture. Species that appear to be less vulnerable could be managed on a stock‐specific basis to prevent over‐exploitation of some species resulting from the use of aggregate catch limits. The framework could be applied to coral reef ornamental fisheries which typically lack landings, catch‐per‐unit‐effort and age‐size data to generate management guidance to reduce overfishing risk. We illustrate the application of this framework to an ornamental fishery in Indonesia.     

渔业生态系统方法简述

考虑到生态系统状态对渔业的重要影响,渔业生态系统方法(Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries,EAF)把对生态的关注加入渔业管理框架中,并以生态系统管理和渔业管理2个理论为基础,扩展了传统渔业管理的框架:以生态系统健康与人类福利的依存关系为基础,关注多物种管理,均衡生态、人文和制度3个维度的目标,实现渔业的可持续发展。本研究介绍了EAF的由来、定义、基本原则以及功能要素,概述了EAF的实践基础和模型构建的技术路径,对比了EAF与EBFM的异同。虽然EAF的理论和实践仍处于完善和发展阶段,但确为渔业管理的发展方向,介绍EAF对促进我国渔业可持续发展具有重要意义。     

Report card on ecosystem‐based fisheries management in tuna regional fisheries management organizations

International instruments of fisheries governance have set the core principles for the management of highly migratory fishes. We evaluated the progress of tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (tRFMOs) in implementing the ecological component of ecosystem‐based fisheries management (EBFM). We first developed a best case tRFMO for EBFM implementation. Second, we developed criteria to evaluate progress in applying EBFM against this best case tRFMO. We assessed progress of the following four ecological components: target species, bycatch species, ecosystem properties and trophic relationships, and habitats. We found that many of the elements necessary for an operational EBFM are already present, yet they have been implemented in an ad hoc way, without a long‐term vision and a formalized plan. Overall, tRFMOs have made considerable progress monitoring the impacts of fisheries on target species, moderate progress for bycatch species, and little progress for ecosystem properties and trophic relationships and habitats. The tRFMOs appear to be halfway towards implementing the ecological component of EBFM, yet it is clear that the “low‐hanging fruit” has been plucked and the more difficult, but surmountable, issues remain, notably the sustainable management of bycatch. All tRFMOs share the same challenge of developing a formal mechanism to better integrate ecosystem science and advice into management decisions. We hope to further discussion across the tRFMOs to inform the development of operational EBFM plans.     

Forage fish fisheries management requires a tailored approach to balance trade‐offs

Ecosystem‐based fishery management requires considering the effects of actions on social, natural and economic systems. These considerations are important for forage fish fisheries, because these species provide ecosystem services as a key prey in food webs and support valuable commercial fisheries. Forage fish stocks fluctuate naturally, and fishing may make these fluctuations more pronounced, yet harvest strategies intended to ameliorate these effects might adversely affect fisheries and communities. Here, we evaluate trade‐offs among a diverse suite of management objectives by simulating outcomes from several harvest strategies on forage fish species. We demonstrate that some trade‐offs (like those between catches and minimizing collapse length) were universal among forage species and could not be eliminated by the use of different control rules. We also demonstrate that trade‐offs vary among forage fish species, with strong trade‐offs between stable, high catches and high‐biomass periods (“bonanzas”) for menhaden‐ and anchovy‐like fish, and counterintuitive trade‐offs for sardine‐like fish between shorter collapses and longer bonanzas. We find that harvest strategies designed to maintain stability in catches will result in more severe collapses. Finally, we show that the ability of assessments to detect rapid changes in population status greatly affects control rule performance and the degree and type of trade‐offs, increasing the risk and severity of collapses and reducing catches. Together, these results demonstrate that while default harvest strategies are useful in data‐poor situations, management strategy evaluations that are tailored to specific forage fish may better balance trade‐offs.     

Perceptions of resource users and managers towards fisheries management options in Kenyan coral reefs

Abstract  The perceptions of Kenyan resource users and managers towards gear and area management were examined through face-to-face interviews to identify areas of agreement and disagreement and compare with compliance. Opinions were sought about gears that sustained fish catch, gears discouraged by the government and traditional leaders, and the benefits of area management were sought. There was good agreement among most groups and traditional leaders about the gears discouraged by government, with beach seines and spear guns the most commonly listed. This indicates good agreement between government and traditions, promoted by recent government legislation, but compliance was poor since nearly two-thirds of fishers used these recently prohibited gears. This was due, in part, to lesser agreement concerning gears that promote a sustainable fishery, with spear guns and beach seines scaled low, but moderately supported in this respect by those fishers that use these gears. These gears persist because of the lack of shared evidence about the yields and sustainability of the various gears and social and economic aspects, such as increased competitiveness and decreased costs of the gears. There is evidence that beach seines lower yields but this gear persists because it is more competitive and has lower costs to the user than the other gears. Spear guns also persist because young and poor fishermen, who cannot afford costs associated with other gears, use them. Government employees scaled the benefits of area, and particularly closed area, management, higher than fishers, which is an issue of conflict but, nonetheless, has good compliance because of the long history of closed area management. For both types of management, shared perceptions alone were insufficient to achieve high compliance, and active enabling and enforcement by managers is needed.     

Ecosystem processes are rarely included in tactical fisheries management

Fish stock productivity, and thereby sensitivity to harvesting, depends on physical (e.g. ocean climate) and biological (e.g. prey availability, competition and predation) processes in the ecosystem. The combined impacts of such ecosystem processes and fisheries have lead to stock collapses across the world. While traditional fisheries management focuses on harvest rates and stock biomass, incorporating the impacts of such ecosystem processes are one of the main pillars of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). Although EAFM has been formally adopted widely since the 1990s, little is currently known to what extent ecosystem drivers of fish stock productivity are actually implemented in fisheries management. Based on worldwide review of more than 1200 marine fish stocks, we found that such ecosystem drivers were implemented in the tactical management of only 24 stocks. Most of these cases were in the North Atlantic and north‐east Pacific, where the scientific support is strong. However, the diversity of ecosystem drivers implemented, and in the approaches taken, suggests that implementation is largely a bottom‐up process driven by a few dedicated experts. Our results demonstrate that tactical fisheries management is still predominantly single‐species oriented taking little account of ecosystem processes, implicitly ignoring that fish stock production is dependent on the physical and biological conditions of the ecosystem. Thus, while the ecosystem approach is highlighted in policy, key aspects of it tend yet not to be implemented in actual fisheries management.     

The global contribution of forage fish to marine fisheries and ecosystems

Forage fish play a pivotal role in marine ecosystems and economies worldwide by sustaining many predators and fisheries directly and indirectly. We estimate global forage fish contributions to marine ecosystems through a synthesis of 72 published Ecopath models from around the world. Three distinct contributions of forage fish were examined: (i) the ecological support service of forage fish to predators in marine ecosystems, (ii) the total catch and value of forage fisheries and (iii) the support service of forage fish to the catch and value of other commercially targeted predators. Forage fish use and value varied and exhibited patterns across latitudes and ecosystem types. Forage fish supported many kinds of predators, including fish, seabirds, marine mammals and squid. Overall, forage fish contribute a total of about $16.9 billion USD to global fisheries values annually, i.e. 20% of the global ex‐vessel catch values of all marine fisheries combined. While the global catch value of forage fisheries was $5.6 billion, fisheries supported by forage fish were more than twice as valuable ($11.3 billion). These estimates provide important information for evaluating the trade‐offs of various uses of forage fish across ecosystem types, latitudes and globally. We did not estimate a monetary value for supportive contributions of forage fish to recreational fisheries or to uses unrelated to fisheries, and thus the estimates of economic value reported herein understate the global value of forage fishes.     

Ecosystem models for fisheries management: finding the sweet spot

The advent of an ecosystem‐based approach dramatically expanded the scope of fisheries management, creating a critical need for new kinds of data and quantitative approaches that could be integrated into the management system. Ecosystem models are needed to codify the relationships among drivers, pressures and resulting states, and to quantify the trade‐offs between conflicting objectives. Incorporating ecosystem considerations requires moving from the single‐species models used in stock assessments, to more complex models that include species interactions, environmental drivers and human consequences. With this increasing model complexity, model fit can improve, but parameter uncertainty increases. At intermediate levels of complexity, there is a ‘sweet spot’ at which the uncertainty in policy indicators is at a minimum. Finding the sweet spot in models requires compromises: for example, to include additional component species, the models of each species have in some cases been simplified from age‐structured to logistic or bioenergetic models. In this paper, we illuminate the characteristics, capabilities and short‐comings of the various modelling approaches being proposed for ecosystem‐based fisheries management. We identify key ecosystem needs in fisheries management and indicate which types of models can meet these needs. Ecosystem models have been playing strategic roles by providing an ecosystem context for single‐species management decisions. However, conventional stock assessments are being increasingly challenged by changing natural mortality rates and environmentally driven changes in productivity that are observed in many fish stocks. Thus, there is a need for more tactical ecosystem models that can respond dynamically to changing ecological and environmental conditions.     

Realizing the potential of trait‐based approaches to advance fisheries science

Analysing how fish populations and their ecological communities respond to perturbations such as fishing and environmental variation is crucial to fisheries science. Researchers often predict fish population dynamics using species‐level life‐history parameters that are treated as fixed over time, while ignoring the impact of intraspecific variation on ecosystem dynamics. However, there is increasing recognition of the need to include processes operating at ecosystem levels (changes in drivers of productivity) while also accounting for variation over space, time and among individuals. To address similar challenges, community ecologists studying plants, insects and other taxa increasingly measure phenotypic characteristics of individual animals that affect fitness or ecological function (termed “functional traits”). Here, we review the history of trait‐based methods in fish and other taxa, and argue that fisheries science could see benefits by integrating trait‐based approaches within existing fisheries analyses. We argue that measuring and modelling functional traits can improve estimates of population and community dynamics, and rapidly detect responses to fishing and environmental drivers. We support this claim using three concrete examples: how trait‐based approaches could account for time‐varying parameters in population models; improve fisheries management and harvest control rules; and inform size‐based models of marine communities. We then present a step‐by‐step primer for how trait‐based methods could be adapted to complement existing models and analyses in fisheries science. Finally, we call for the creation and expansion of publicly available trait databases to facilitate adapting trait‐based methods in fisheries science, to complement existing public databases of life‐history parameters for marine organisms.     

Dynamics of fish assemblages on coral reefs subjected to different management regimes in the Abrolhos Bank,eastern Brazil

• 1. Marine protected areas (MPAs) range from multiple‐use areas (MUA) to absolute no‐take reserves (NTR). Despite their importance for fisheries management, there are few long‐term studies comparing benefits from different types of MPAs within the same region.
• 2. Fish assemblages were monitored for five years (2001–2005) in the largest coral reefs in the South Atlantic (Abrolhos Bank, Brazil). Monitoring included one community‐based MUA, two NTRs (one established in 1983 and another in 2001), and one unprotected area. Benthic assemblages at these areas, as well as fish assemblages on unprotected deeper reefs (25–35 m), were monitored from 2003 onwards.
• 3. Habitat characteristics strongly influenced fish assemblages' structure. This, together with the lack of data from before establishment of the MPAs, did not allow an unequivocal analysis of the effects of the MPAs.
• 4. Biomass of commercially important fish, particularly small carnivores, was higher in the older NTR. Biomass of black grouper Mycteroperca bonaci increased by 30‐fold inside NTRs during the study period, while remaining consistently low elsewhere.
• 5. A single herbivore species, the parrotfish Scarus trispinosus, dominated fish assemblages (28.3% of total biomass). Biomass of this species increased in 2002 on the younger NTR and on the MUA, soon after establishment of the former and banning of the parrotfish fishery in the latter. This increase was followed by a decline from 2003 onwards, after increased poaching and reopening of the parrotfish fishery.
• 6. Fish biomass increased in 2002 across the entire region. This increase was stronger in sites closer to deeper reefs, where fish biomass was up to 30‐times higher than shallow reefs: movement of fish from deeper to shallower areas may have played a role.
• 7. The effective use of MPAs in the Abrolhos Bank is still dependent on adequate enforcement and the protection of critical habitats such as deep reefs and mangroves.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ecosystem effects of invertebrate fisheries

Since the 1950s, invertebrate fisheries catches have rapidly expanded globally to more than 10 million tonnes annually, with twice as many target species, and are now significant contributors to global seafood provision, export, trade and local livelihoods. Invertebrates play important and diverse functional roles in marine ecosystems, yet the ecosystem effects of their exploitation are poorly understood. Using 12 ecosystem models distributed worldwide, we analysed the trade‐offs of various invertebrate fisheries and their ecosystem effects as well as ecological indicators. Although less recognized for their contributions to marine food webs, our results show that the magnitude of trophic impacts of invertebrates on other species of commercial and conservation interest is comparable with those of forage fish. Generally, cephalopods showed the strongest ecosystem effects and were characterized by a strong top‐down predatory role. Lobster, and to a lesser extent, crabs, shrimp and prawns, also showed strong ecosystem effects, but at lower trophic levels. Benthic invertebrates, including epifauna and infauna, also showed considerable ecosystem effects, but with strong bottom‐up characteristics. In contrast, urchins, bivalves, and gastropods showed generally lower ecosystem effects in our simulations. Invertebrates also strongly contributed to benthic–pelagic coupling, with exploitation of benthic invertebrates impacting pelagic fishes and vice versa. Finally, on average, invertebrates produced maximum sustainable yield at lower levels of depletion (~45%) than forage fish (~65%), highlighting the need for management targets that avoid negative consequences for target species and marine ecosystems as a whole.