Integrative Recreational Fisheries Management

Lab meeting | Photo: IGB

We are devoted to produce robust insights and recommendations for sustainable recreational fisheries. We take an inter- and transdisciplinary research approach, conceptualising recreational fisheries as coupled social-ecological system. We built bridges among fisheries ecology, behavioural ecology, fisheries evolution and applied social and economic studies, and study angler attitudes and behaviours in addition to fish population dynamics, fish behavioural ecology and fisheries evolution. Our practically oriented research is based on profound theoretical and analytical frameworks, employing both empirical and modelling approaches in both laboratories and field settings. We cooperate with a range of leading universities and groups in Germany and abroad. The stakeholders we work with include angling clubs, angler associations, fisheries agencies and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

We are heavily involved in field work in lakes and rivers, here sampling fish in Vätersee – one of IGB’s fish research lakes. | Photo: Thomas Klefoth

We collaborate intensively with angling clubs and are engaged in adaptive management experiments of fish stocking and habitat improvement in lakes. | Photo: Thomas Klefoth

We conduct experimental angling on tagged fish tracked with high resolution telemetry, for example in large perch. | Photo: Robert Arlinghaus / IGB

Our main study system is recreational fisheries. | Photo: Robert Arlinghaus / IGB

Pike (Esox lucius) is one of our favorite model organisms. | Photo: Arnd Weber

We study the importance of inland fisheries for food security across the globe. | Photo: Robert Arlinghaus / IGB

We study the fitness of fishes when exposed to angling, here largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) in the USA. | Photo: Cory Suski