Evaluation of Yellow Sea anchovy (Engraulis japonicus) fishery for management strategies using a data-limited management toolkit

Most fisheries in developing countries are data-limited, which creates a huge challenge to the fishery management. Therefore full utilization of the available information is essential. Japanese anchovy (Engraulis japonicus) plays a key role in the marine ecosystem, but the anchovy population in the Yellow Sea of China has declined in the recent decades, which is also a data-limited fishery. In order to implement robust management strategies to recover the anchovy stock, based on the available information as well as the associated uncertainties, here we examine its management strategy evaluation using a computer software package data-limited management toolkit (DLMtool). Results indicated that fishing pressure on the Yellow Sea anchovy should be slightly reduced and the length at first capture should exceed the length at first maturity. These are high probably conductive to anchovy population recovery. We also selected some management procedures performed well in this study, such as minlenLopt1. Paying attention to quantitative population dynamics and perfecting data collection are important for future anchovy fisheries management against uncertainties in both model and data.