External peer review of survey serier: Lessons From the Rügen Herring Larvae Survey

Abstract

ICES coordinated surveys are, on a non-regular basis, reviewed by parent expert groups. A potential problem is that these are often conducted by evaluators being themselves involved in the surveys, thus lacking independence.Compared to the cost of most surveys, the funds assigned to quality control is minimal, and external peer reviews rarely happen. In the present case, the survey was increasingly reduced to the delivery of a recruitmant index for the assessment of the Western Baltic Spring Spawning herring, but the time series could never be used for the analytical assessment.