Center for Fisheries Enhancement

Center Approach & Philosophy

For too long, fisheries management has relied largely on regulation of catch to manage fisheries. It is now appreciated that a more comprehensive and integrated management approach is needed to ensure sustainable fisheries. The Center for Fisheries Enhancement is organized around the main approaches available for managing fisheries: habitat protection, fishing regulations based on stock assessment, stock enhancement, and ecosystem-based management. As part of integrating these approaches, center research will evaluate and help (1) develop the science of stock enhancement to enable more effective and responsible approaches to replenishing depleted stocks using aquacultured fishes and invertebrates, (2) improve knowledge of what is essential or critical habitat for key fisheries stocks, (3) develop a better understanding of life-history and ecological requirements and how to use this knowledge to develop sound regulations and (4) advance understanding of current trends in ecosystem-based management, fisheries stock assessment and modeling, and develop innovative methods for monitoring fish abundances and exploitation rates.


The Center for Fisheries Enhancement
now includes three interrelated research programs:

  • Marine Stock Enhancement - Kenneth M. Leber, Ph.D., Program Manager
  • Fisheries Habitat Ecology - Aaron Adams, Ph.D., Program Manager
  • Fisheries Assessment and Ecosystem Management - Professor Carl Walters, Ph.D., Program Manager, William R. and Lenore Mote Eminent Scholar Chair in Fisheries Ecology (2001-2003)

By including all of these approaches, this center has positioned Mote Marine Laboratory at the forefront of a new integrated, enhancement-centered science of fisheries management. Strengthened ties with other centers of excellence in the U.S. and abroad, plus co-hosting international symposia in this field, will ensure that the center remains at the forefront of new ideas and methods for enhancing and sustaining fisheries. Building stronger ties with graduate students and postdoctoral scientists from leading universities will provide the talent needed to help achieve our goals. Strengthening ties with eminent fisheries scholars and management agencies, e.g., Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), will help ensure the utility and application of center research findings.

The center has formed key partnerships:

  1. through the William R. and Lenore Mote Eminent Scholar Chair in Fisheries Ecology, an endowment established at Florda State University in 1994. The Mote endowment brings distinguished scholars in fisheries ecology and enhancement into Florida annually to work for 6 to 12 months alongside Mote and FSU scientists and faculty. The endowment also provides a semi-annual international symposium in fisheries ecology and a summer stipend for the Mote Eminent Scholar Chair Intern, which funds an undergraduate from FSU to provide hands-on experience in fisheries ecology and stock-enhancement research at Mote Marine Lab.
  2. with management agencies, including NOAA-Aquaculture and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute).
  3. with universities and independent research laboratories
  4. with the Science Consortium for Ocean Replenishment
  5. with other Research Centers at Mote Marine Laboratory, including the Center for Aquaculture Research and Development, the Center for Coral Reef Research and others


CFE Research Programs

Marine Stock Enhancement Program

The rapid rise in human population size occurring in Florida and the rest of the world is coupled with a limit reached in 1990 on growth of the worldwide annual fishery catch. This will cause a deficit by 2025 of some 60-million metric tons of seafood needed to meet per-capita fish and shellfish consumption. The challenge to humankind is to respond to the growing demand for aquatic organisms in a manner that sustains our natural resources. This requires new approaches, and linkages between sustainable fisheries and a sustainable aquaculture industry. Marine aquaculture must expand to alleviate the future shortage in supply of aquatic protein. Stock enhancement (hatchery releases to increase abundance of wild stocks) is a promising approach to shore up traditional fishery management. However, very little success has been documented in this branch of fisheries science. Our Stock Enhancement Program is dedicated to advancing the level of scientific study and achievement in this rapidly emerging field.

The goal of stock enhancement research at Mote Marine Laboratory is to overcome impediments to the development of a responsible and effective marine stock enhancement technology that can be used (1) to restore depleted marine fish populations, (2) to augment fishery yields, (3) to provide a tool for advancing basic knowledge about wild stocks, and (4) to establish new fisheries in artificial habitats.

A key partner in our stock enhancement research is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), which manages Florida's marine stock enhancement program. This unique partnership has enabled a team effort in developing, testing and evaluating the effectiveness of stock enhancement as a fishery management tool in Florida. The researchers and fishery managers working together in this partnership are providing the scientific information needed to enable a responsible, adaptive-management approach in conducting and refining stock enhancement in Florida.

The strong partnership with FWRI is further strengthened through the close involvement of, and collaborations with, the Eminent Scholars that come to Mote through FSU-Mote Eminent Scholar Chair, and the scientists in our National stock enhancement research consortium, the Science Consortium for Ocean Replenishment (SCORE).

A key partner at Mote Marine Laboratory is Mote's Center for Aquaculture Research and Development (CARD), which is a very important linkage. Working closely with CARD allows us to incorporate new species for stock enhancement research, and to pursue new funding together for stock enhancement research and development at Mote Marine Laboratory. This allows us to evaluate stocking strategies for species that have never been mass produced before in hatcheries. The partnership with CARD is also critical for expansion of current aquaculture production capabilities. Such expansion is essential to support the production of the hundreds of thousands of fish needed for our field research to test and advance the potential for marine stock-enhancement to be an effective fishery-management tool in Florida.

Fisheries Habitat Ecology Program

The program's mission is to advance knowledge about how to maintain the integrity of fish habitats by conducting research that is applicable to management, and through outreach and education. This research program examines ontogenetic habitat connectivity of coastal fishes. Our research is framed within the context of habitat mosaics and dispersal corridors, with particular attention to the effects of anthropogenic activities on habitat quality. This includes research on the relative impacts of natural and anthropogenic disturbances and the effects of invasive species on native gamefish juveniles. Questions of interest include is there a threshold distance between habitats that determines whether a habitat is a source or sink for juvenile fishes? Are continuous dispersal corridors needed to provide food and refuge during movements between habitats occupied by different life stages? Which microhabitat characteristics are key to shifting from nursery to adult habitats? Which species will benefit from an increase in habitat fragmentation and which species will suffer declines in abundance? How are ontogenetic shifts impacted by disruptions of habitat connectivity? Do fish use natural and anthropogenically impacted habitats differently? What are the invasion pathways for exotic species entering estuarine habitats? Does freshwater flow alteration into estuarine habitats influence nursery habitat quality?

This program was established in 1998 as one of the core research programs in the Center for Fisheries Enhancement. Directed by Dr. Aaron Adams, the aim of this program is to elucidate the role of habitat in fisheries productivity.

Fisheries Assessment and Ecosystem Management Program

(This Section Under Development)

For information on Mote's aquaculture research center see:

Center for Aquaculture Research and Development (CARD) Homepage:

Kevan L. Main, Ph.D., Center Director

Mote's aquaculture center is a key partner in the Center for Fisheries Enhancement's research to evaluate and advance marine stock enhancement potential.