Edward V. Camp

0000-0003-1563-8296

The History of Offshore Aquaculture Governance in the Gulf of Mexico

Laura Tiu and Edward Camp

Opportunities and Obstacles to Aquaculture in Florida

Edward Camp, Taryn Garlock, and James Anderson

What is stock assessment?

Nicholas Fisch, Angela Collins, and Edward V. Camp

Whether you’re an angler, diver, conservationist, or just interested in fisheries, you’ve likely heard the term “stock assessment” before. What are stock assessments? How do they work? How do they inform management decisions? This publication provides information to the public and people serving in natural resource management agencies and working in outreach and Extension to show how fisheries management decisions are made.

How to Define Successful Stocking of Florida's Freshwater Recreational Fisheries

Edward V. Camp, Rick Stout, Nick Trippel, Jon Fury, Stasey Whichel, and Kai Lorenzen

Artificial Reefs and People: How We Create Them and How They Affect Us

Lisa Chong, Keith Mille, Holly Abeels, Victor Blanco, and Edward V. Camp

Artificial reefs are constructed to provide several important ecosystem services to coastal communities and fisheries around the world, and their deployment results in significant socio-ecological and economic effects.

Oyster-Predator Dynamics and Climate Change

Gabrielle Love, Shirley Baker, and Edward V. Camp

Fish Population Recruitment: What Recruitment Means and Why It Matters

Edward V. Camp, Robert N. M. Ahrens, Angela B. Collins, and Kai Lorenzen

An update on Florida’s Artificial Reefs: recent deployments and trends

Edward V. Camp, Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Keith Mille, Michael Sipos, Brittany Hall-Scharf, Ana Zangroniz, Scott Jackson, Shelly Krueger, and Victor Blanco

Popular marine habitat enhancements, artificial reefs can benefit sea life and humans. Floridians visit them every year to fish, dive, snorkel, or boat around. The number of artificial reefs is growing around Florida, but their function and impact are difficult to describe because artificial reefs change over time as they become encrusted with fouling organisms or altered by storms and shifting sands. As reefs change, expectations shift, and advances in research and monitoring allow us to learn more about them. This publication provides an update of Florida’s recent artificial reef activities. It focuses on new deployments, designs, and monitoring objectives from 2015 to 2021. It should help management agencies and outreach and education professionals understand recent trends in priorities. Fishing and diving clubs, monitoring programs, local artificial reef planners and coordinators, and other stakeholders can discover and share information learned across counties.

How Ecosystem Services are Measured and Why it Matters for Florida

Charles Wallace, Anna Braswell, Mysha Clarke, Andrew Ropicki, Tara Wade, Frank Asche, Ashley Smyth, Armando Ubeda, and Ed Camp

This publication describes some of the ways to measure ecosystem services and explains how the different approaches to assess ecosystems might be selected, depending on what is most important to the user.

Ecosystem Services Provided by Living Shorelines

Ashley R. Smyth, Laura K. Reynolds, Savanna C. Barry, Natalie C. Stephens, Joshua T. Patterson, and Edward V. Camp

The purpose of this new 6-page document is to explain the types of ecosystem services provided by different types of living shorelines and how to quantify these values. The target audience for this document is local governments and municipalities that make decisions about developing, conserving, and restoring living shorelines; state management agencies that oversee broader scale habitat management; and finally, homeowners who will be immediately affected by any of these decisions. Written by Ashley R. Smyth, Laura K. Reynolds, Savanna C. Barry, Natalie C. Stephens, Joshua T. Patterson, and Edward V. Camp and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Soil, Water, and Ecosystem Sciences.

Measuring the Short-Term Economic Impacts of Ecological Restoration

Robert Botta, Christa D. Court, and Edward V. Camp

Increasing demand for ecological restoration has resulted in the development of a “restoration economy” in the United States. Often, the implementation phase of restoration efforts involves substantial capital and labor investments, the short-term economic impacts of which should not be ignored when evaluating the outcomes of restoration efforts. This publication describes the relevant economic impact analysis methods and summarizes a case study application of these methods for the restoration of the Lone Cabbage Reef (LCR) Complex, a recently restored oyster reef in Florida. It should be useful to local governments, outreach and Extension agents, and management agency personnel who want to better understand the economic impacts of restoration actions.

Understanding Metrics for Communicating the Economic Importance of Florida’s Fisheries Part III: Measuring Economic Value

Andrew Ropicki, Edward V. Camp, Christa D. Court, and Robert Botta

Understanding the economic importance of fisheries and coastal resources is vitally important for making good management decisions that affect human communities, local businesses, and environmental and ecological sustainability. This final publication in a series of three follows Part I, an overview, and Part II, methods to quantify economic activity. Part III focuses on measures of economic value and discusses different ways to think about and estimate the economic values of Florida’s fisheries and aquatic resources.

Market Opportunities for Florida Farmed Oysters

Robert Botta, Taryn Garlock, Edward V. Camp, Andrew Ropicki, and Frank Asche

The oyster aquaculture industry has grown quickly in recent years. New farming techniques target specific attributes that increase oysters' value and allow them to be sold in the high-value, half-shell market. A lack of economic data makes it difficult for growers to determine which specific attributes increase oyster value, however. This publication summarizes findings from a recent study that examined restaurant menus to obtain economic data on raw, half-shell oysters. Major findings indicate that brand is an oyster attribute that provides value, and that marketing oysters with information on two or more attributes can also result in higher prices. Additionally, locally sourced oysters are often sold at cheaper prices, providing an opportunity for growers from outside regions to enter new markets. The findings will be useful to Florida oyster growers as attempts to expand Florida’s oyster aquaculture industry continue.

Recreational Fishing Effort and How Management Actions Can Affect It—Part 1: Theory

Edward Camp, Micheal S. Allen, Thomas T. Ankersen, Savanna Barry, and Mark W. Clark

Recreational fishing is especially important to Florida’s economy and ecosystems. One of the most important metrics of recreational fisheries is “effort”—defined as the number of trips taken during a time and place. Effort is so important because it directly affects fish population sustainability, economic value and market activity. But what determines fishing effort? This publication describes the mechanisms that drive fishing effort. It specifically details the processes by which management actions can directly and indirectly affect fishing effort, and how feedbacks between these actions can change effort. The information in this document is critical for people involved with management decisions, like agency personnel and their stakeholders; those wanting to explain it to others, like extension agents; directly affected stakeholders like recreational fishers and guides; or simply the general public who want to know more about recreational fisheries in Florida.

Climate Change: Effects on Salinity in Florida’s Estuaries and Responses of Oysters, Seagrass, and Other Animal and Plant Life

Ashley R. Smyth, H. Dail Laughinghouse, Laura K. Reynolds, Edward V. Camp, and Karl Havens

Florida’s economically important estuaries could be heavily impacted by sea-level rise and altered river flow, both caused by climate change. The resulting higher salinity, or saltiness of the water, could harm plants and animals, alter fish, and bird habitat, and reduce the capacity of estuaries to provide such important services as seafood production and the protection of shorelines from erosion. This publication contains information for stakeholders, students, scientists, and environmental agencies interested in understanding how changes in salinity impact Florida’s estuaries.

An Introduction to Harvest Tags for Marine Recreational Fisheries

Edward Camp, Zachary Siders, Andrew Ropicki, and Frank Asche

Managing recreational fisheries requires balancing sustainability against allowing as much access and harvest as possible. Maintaining sustainability is made harder by discard mortality where any fishing activity, even catch and release, risks fish dying from injuries, predation, or other causes. This is especially a problem for Florida reef fish species that live at depths and habitats where barotrauma increases mortality and depredation by larger fish, sharks, or marine mammals increases it further. Harvest (or trip) tags could reduce overharvest, lower discard mortality, and allow anglers more freedom to choose when to fish. Harvest tags would limit the total fish harvested, but could eliminate one of the least popular current management restrictions, harvest seasons. This publication describes harvest tag approaches, discussing how they are already used in fishing and hunting and describing some of the potential benefits and costs if they were applied in Florida.

Understanding Metrics for Communicating the Economic Importance of Florida’s Fisheries Part II: Quantifying Market Activity

Robert Botta, Christa D. Court, Andrew Ropicki, and Edward V. Camp

Understanding the economic importance of fisheries and coastal resources is vitally important for making good management decisions that affect human communities, local businesses, and environmental and ecological sustainability. This publication is the second part in a three-part series summarizing different economic metrics used in a fisheries context. The first in the series provides an overview. This second publication focuses on regional economic methods used to quantify market activity. It provides a discussion of the most relevant terms and analyses as well as a brief discussion of how one might proceed with a regional economic analysis that would provide these types of measures for Florida’s fisheries as well as aquaculture and coastal resources. It is intended to assist management agencies and Extension agents, as well as the interested public, who seek to understand the metrics associated with quantifying market activity.

Ecological Influences on Coastal Finfish Recruitment

Gabrielle Love, Anna Braswell, Angela B. Collins, and Edward Camp

Florida is experiencing many human and climate-related changes to the aquatic environment that can affect fish. Lost or altered habitat, for instance, can lead to changes in fish populations that may impact survival, growth, or recruitment of those populations. Recruitment influences how many adult fish are later available for spawning and continuing the population. Understanding recruitment and how it is affected by ecological influences is important for considering the potential effects of ongoing climate change, as well as restoration and management of water quality and habitat. This publication provides background information useful to anyone interested in understanding more about factors affecting fish populations and should be especially useful to Extension agents and management agency personnel who would like an overview of these topics before engaging with stakeholders.

Understanding Metrics for Communicating the Economic Importance of Florida’s Fisheries Part I: An Overview

Edward V. Camp, Christa D. Court, Andrew Ropicki, and Robert Botta

Understanding the economic importance of fisheries and coastal resources is vitally important for making good management decisions that affect human communities, local businesses, and environment and ecological sustainability. However, economic “importance” is not a very specific term, and can mean completely different things to different people. We reviewed different fields of natural resource economics to and describe the different economic terms most often used. This information can help management agencies and cooperative Extension agents use the correct terminology and teach the correct terminology in their outreach.

How Stocking Recreational Fisheries Works (and Sometimes Does not)

Nicholas Fisch, Diana Perry, Chelsey Crandall, Nick Trippel, and Edward V. Camp

Stock enhancement or “stocking” is one of the oldest, most common, and most popular ways of improving recreational fisheries. Stocking is usually supposed to increase the number of fish available for anglers to catch. Unfortunately, stocking doesn’t always do this. The reasons why it may not always work as planned relate to some important concepts of fish ecology. This publication describes those ecological concepts and then also describes the three primary “outcomes” of stocking that anglers might observe. In the end, stocking can be very effective, but only if the stocked fish survive reasonably well and don’t decrease the population of wild fish.

How Oyster Reefs Can Affect Finfish Recruitment

Gabrielle Love, Anna Braswell, Angela B. Collins, and Edward Camp

Recruitment is a very important life stage for fish which has direct impacts on size of the whole fish population. During this phase, the mortality juvenile fish experience is affected by their density because of competition for the available resources. How much fish density affects mortality in recruitment is itself affected by many factors, but one of the most important is the structural habitat available to juvenile fish. Structurally complex habitats like oyster reefs are thought to have a particularly strong influence on the recruitment process of certain species. Here we describe the ways that habitat can alter recruitment success. We focus on how oyster reefs affect recruitment of fish in Florida and the particular issues related to management of this important habitat.

Artificial Reefs in Florida 101: Effects on Fishers (and Divers)—Part 3 of an Artificial Reef Series

Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Anna Braswell, Ana Zangroniz, Andrew Ropicki, Scott Jackson, and Edward V. Camp

Increasingly, coastal managers are placing artificial reefs in marine waters. These long-lasting habitat alterations have measurable effects on fish, fishers, divers, fisheries, and marine social ecological systems. Understanding how artificial reefs function is necessary to make good decisions about future artificial reefs. Scientific research on many aspects of artificial reefs is not always summarized and explained. In response to this need, we designed a 4-part series called Artificial Reefs 101. This publication, part 3 of the Artificial Reefs series, explains how artificial reefs affect fishers and divers. It will help the interested public understand more about the ecological effects of artificial reefs and provide detailed information to stakeholders including management agencies, local governments, artificial reef manufacturers, and Extension agents, to allow for better-informed decisions about building and managing artificial reefs.

Florida Marine Baitfish Aquaculture Series – Part 1: Marketing Opportunities and Challenges

Marissa Drake, Andrew Ropicki, Matthew A. DiMaggio, Kelly Grogan, Cortney L. Ohs, Laura Tiu, Edward V. Camp, and Jordan Moor

This publication, Part 1 in the Florida Marine Baitfish Aquaculture series, outlines opportunities and challenges associated with marketing aquacultured live marine baitfish in Florida. It examines why Florida is uniquely suited for the continued development of this industry, reviews the marine recreational angling baitfish market, and describes the opportunities and challenges associated with marine baitfish marketing and selling live baitfish to marine baitfish retailers. This publication is intended to provide information to current and potential farmers, as well as management agency and outreach personnel and the interested public. It should help farmers, potential farmers, and perhaps investors understand the potential scale, opportunities, and challenges of live baitfish aquaculture in Florida. This same information can assist policymakers and outreach personnel in their management decisions and the communications of those decisions.

Living Shoreline Ecosystem Service Valuation Tool

Ashley R. Smyth, Laura K. Reynolds, Savanna C. Barry, Natalie C. Stephens, Joshua T. Patterson, and Edward V. Camp

Living shorelines are an increasingly popular way to protect and stabilize waterfronts for coastal property owners. Living shorelines provide valuable benefits to humans, including water quality improvement, habitat, fisheries, and carbon sequestration. Estimating the economic value of the ecosystem services living shorelines offer is an integral part of management decisions. The living shoreline valuation tool can help quantify the costs and benefits of living shorelines projects. This publication briefly describes the ecosystem services associated with living shorelines. The purpose of this publication is to introduce the ecosystem service valuation tool. Our target audience for the living shoreline evaluation tool includes natural resource extension agents, community organizations, and coastal homeowners who want to calculate the value of ecosystem services provided by coastal restoration projects, including living shorelines. 

An Update on Florida’s Artificial Reefs: Recent Research and What It Means for Florida

Edward V. Camp, Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Keith Mille, Michael Sipos, Brittany Hall-Scharf, Ana Zangroniz, Scott Jackson, Shelly Krueger, and Victor Blanco

As coastal managers and practitioners continue placing artificial reefs in marine waters, the scientific understanding of the effects and implications of artificial reefs is changing. It is especially important for resource managers and Extension and outreach personnel, as well as the interested public, to keep aware of these changes as they occur, but usually scientific studies are first published in peer-reviewed journals that may be inaccessible. This publication describes some of the most recent artificial reef studies that are likely to be especially relevant to Florida. Each is summarized and its potential relevance to Florida described. This is not a complete record of recent research, but it should help the interested public, managers, educators, and outreach personnel stay informed of recent developments in artificial reef science that should be considered when making decisions about artificial reefs.

Fish Population Recruitment 2: Stock Recruit Relationships and Why They Matter for Stock Assessment

Edward V. Camp, Robert N.M. Ahrens, Angela B. Collins, and Kai Lorenzen

A good understanding of stock recruit relationships is essential for accurate stock assessment and good fisheries management. But the concept is complicated and can be difficult to understand. This publication uses a recent Florida spotted seatrout stock assessment as an example to show how the stock-recruit relationship allows managers to determine whether or not a given fish population is overfished.

Oyster Habitat Restoration and Shoreline Protection

Charles Wallace, Edward Camp, and Ashley Smyth

As the climate continues to change, coastal areas and the people that live there face increasing risks from erosion and wave damage. This is made worse by declines in natural oyster reefs, which would provide some natural protection. However, oysters can be restored for the specific purposes of protecting shorelines. The practicality and cost effectiveness of using oysters in this way is described in this publication, which is intended to be used by coastal property owners, as well as local governments that must make decisions about protecting shorelines in the face of a changing climate.

Recreational Fishing Effort and How Management Actions Can Affect It—Part 2: Literature and a Case Study

Edward Camp, Micheal S. Allen, Thomas T. Ankersen, Savanna Barry, and Mark W. Clark

Recreational fishing, crucially important to Florida’s economy and ecosystems, can be affected by management decisions. Decisions that change the allowable harvest or the type of access to certain fishing areas are often expected to have strong effects on fishing effort, but the outcome of these actions is not always obvious. To provide greater insight into what may happen to fishing effort after management decisions, we describe case studies from the North American fisheries literature, some Florida-specific. These illustrate that the same or similar management actions (e.g., a more restrictive harvest policy) can have opposite effects on total fishing effort depending on the specifics of the case. We use this information as well as additional fisheries theory to explore a specific case study—what might happen if special harvest or access regulations were applied to a popular but ecologically and environmentally sensitive habitat—Florida's St. Martins Marsh Aquatic Preserve.

Spawning Potential Ratio: A Key Metric for Managing Florida’s Fisheries

Nicholas Fisch and Edward V. Camp

From red drum to red snapper, many of Florida’s fisheries are managed with specific consideration given to a quantity called the Spawning Potential Ratio (SPR). This conspicuous acronym is an important metric to fisheries biologists and managers. It helps determine harvest size limits for fisheries and drives regulations for both commercial and recreational fisheries. However, SPR is not especially intuitive to the general public or even agency personnel and Extension agents. This publication is intended to describe what SPR is and explain how and why it is used in managing fish stocks. We think it will help people better understand fisheries management decisions, the documents describing them, and the science behind them.

Cambio climático: Efectos sobre la salinidad en los estuarios de Florida y respuestas de las ostras, las praderas marinas y otras formas de vida animal y vegetal

Ashley R. Smyth, H. Dail Laughinghouse IV, Laura K. Reynolds, Edward V. Camp y Karl Havens. Traducido por H. Dail Laughinghouse IV.

Los estuarios económicamente importantes de Florida podrían verse fuertemente afectados por el aumento del nivel del mar y la alteración del flujo de los ríos, ambos causados por el cambio climático. La resultante mayor salinidad o salinidad del agua podría perjudicar plantas y animales, alterar el hábitat de peces y aves y reducir la capacidad de los estuarios para proporcionar servicios tan importantes como la producción de mariscos y la protección de las costas contra la erosión. Esta publicación contiene información para las partes interesadas, estudiantes, científicos y agencias ambientales interesadas en comprender cómo los cambios en la salinidad impactan los estuarios de Florida con estudios de casos específicos.

Artificial Reefs in Florida 101 – why are they built? Part 1 of an Artificial Reef series

Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Anna Braswell, Andrew Ropicki, Scott Jackson, and Edward V. Camp

Increasingly, coastal managers are placing artificial reefs in marine waters. These long-lasting habitat alterations have measurable effects on fish, fishers, divers, fisheries, and marine social ecological systems. Understanding how artificial reefs function is necessary to make good decisions about future artificial reefs. Scientific research on many aspects of artificial reefs is not always summarized and explained. In response to this need, we designed a 4-part series called Artificial Reefs 101. This publication, Part 1 of the Artificial Reefs 101 series, explains why artificial reefs are built. It defines what artificial reefs are and explains why people build and deploy artificial reefs. It should help the interested public understand how artificial reefs affect marine resources, and provide a background and baseline of information for decision-makers such as local officials, management agency personnel, and Extension agents.

Artificial Reefs in Florida 101 – effects on fish: Part 2 of an Artificial Reef series

Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Anna Braswell, Ana Zangroniz, Andrew Ropicki, Scott Jackson, and Edward V. Camp

Increasingly, coastal managers are placing artificial reefs in marine waters. These long-lasting habitat alterations have measurable effects on fish, fishers, divers, fisheries, and marine social ecological systems. Understanding how artificial reefs function is necessary to make good decisions about future artificial reefs. Scientific research on many aspects of artificial reefs is not always summarized and explained. In response to this need, we designed a 4-part series called Artificial Reefs 101. This publication, part 2 of the Artificial Reefs series, explains how artificial reefs affect fish populations. It will help the interested public understand more about the ecological effects of artificial reefs and provide detailed information to stakeholders including management agencies, local governments, artificial reef manufacturers, and Extension agents, to allow for better-informed decisions about building and managing artificial reefs.

Artificial Reefs in Florida 101 – effects on fisheries: Part 4 of an Artificial Reef series

Lisa Chong, Angela B. Collins, Holly Abeels, Anna Braswell, Andrew Ropicki, and Edward V. Camp

Increasingly, coastal managers are placing artificial reefs in marine waters. These long-lasting habitat alterations have measurable effects on fish, fishers, divers, fisheries, and marine social ecological systems. Understanding how artificial reefs function is necessary to make good decisions about future artificial reefs. Scientific research on many aspects of artificial reefs is not always summarized and explained. In response to this need, we designed a 4-part series called Artificial Reefs 101. This publication, part 4 of the Artificial Reefs series, explores a complicated but fascinating aspect of artificial reefs—should we expect them to lead to better fishing in the long run? Many people think artificial reefs should be a “win-win” since both fish and fishers seem to like them. But it is increasingly apparent that they are likely to increase fishing mortality more than they increase fish populations. So they could lead to more restrictive regulations.