Scholars Award to Model Uncertainty in Fishering Research Combining Anthropology and Fishery Science

世界各地的沿海渔业正在经历深刻的生态变化，原因是人类开采增加、污染以及海岸线更广泛的经济和社会发展。对发展可持续渔业的挑战的评估一贯呼吁将传统的和商业的渔民知识与以科学为基础的研究相结合，目的是创造新的管理办法，维持鱼类种群和沿海渔业社区。这一方法论培训学者奖旨在将对商业渔民知识和经验的人类学研究与海洋科学家目前估计鱼类种群动态和可持续捕获率的努力结合起来。这位人类学家研究员将研究渔业科学，以更好地模拟科学家的估计技术。研究的地理重点是切萨皮克湾地区，特别是蓝蟹渔业。这项研究的理论重点是认知和环境，并认为商业渔夫知识和科学家专业知识的整合需要理解每个群体隐含地用来理解彼此和蓝蟹的潜在认知和文化模型。此外，该项目侧重于商业渔民和科学家如何模拟渔业和鱼类种群的不确定性，这是一个共同感兴趣的领域，没有从不同利益攸关方对同一渔业或鱼类种群的比较角度进行充分研究。该项目在告知和教育其他科学家和自然资源用户群体，例如农民和牧场主方面具有更广泛的影响，即如何利用自然、生计和社区的基本认知模型来促进交流宝贵的环境信息，这些信息有助于我们努力管理渔业、农村土地、保护区和其他对不同利益攸关方具有高生态和经济价值的领域。

Coastal fisheries worldwide are experiencing profound ecological changes due to increased human exploitation, pollution and broader economic and social developments along shorelines. Assessments of the challenges to developing sustainable fisheries consistently call for the integration of traditional and commercial fisher knowledge with science-based research, with the goal of creating new management approaches that sustain fish populations and coastal fishing communities. This Scholars Award in Methodological Training seeks to integrate anthropological study of commercial fishers' knowledge and experience with current efforts by marine scientists to estimate fish population dynamics and sustainable harvest rates. The anthropologist researcher will study fishery science in order to better model scientists' estimation techniques. The geographical focus of the research is the Chesapeake Bay region, with a particular focus on the blue crab fishery. The theoretical focus of the research is cognitive and environmental, and argues that the integration of commercial fisher knowledge and scientist expertise requires an understanding of the underlying cognitive and cultural models each group implicitly uses to understand each other and blue crabs. Furthermore the project focuses on how commercial fishers and scientists both model uncertainty in the fishery and fish population, an area of keenly shared interest that has not been sufficiently studied from a comparative perspective for different stakeholders for the same fishery or fish population.The project has broader implications in terms of informing and educating other scientists and natural resource user groups, including farmers and ranchers for example, on how underlying cognitive models of nature, livelihoods and community can be used to promote the exchange of valuable environmental information useful in our efforts to manage fisheries, rural lands, reserves and other areas of high ecological and economic value to diverse stakeholders.