Commercially traded fish portfolios mask household utilization of biodiversity in wild food systems.

The global biodiversity that underpins wild food systems-including fisheries-is rapidly declining. Yet, we often have only a limited understanding of how households use and benefit from biodiversity in the ecosystems surrounding them. Explicating these relationships is critical to forestall and mitigate the effects of biodiversity declines on food and nutrition security. Here, we quantify how biodiversity filters from ecosystems to household harvest, consumption, and sale, and how ecological traits and household characteristics shape these relationships. We used a unique, integrated ecological (40 sites, quarterly data collection) and household survey (n = 414, every 2 mo data collection) dataset collected over 3 y in rice field fisheries surrounding Cambodia's Tonlé Sap, one of Earth's most productive and diverse freshwater systems. While ecosystem biodiversity was positively associated with household catch, consumption, and sold biodiversity, households consumed an average of 43% of the species present in the ecosystem and sold only 9%. Larger, less nutritious, and more common species were disproportionally represented in portfolios of commercially traded species, while consumed species mirrored catches. The relationship between ecosystem and consumed biodiversity was remarkably consistent across variation in household fishing effort, demographics, and distance to nearest markets. Poorer households also consumed more species, underscoring how wild food systems may most benefit the vulnerable. Our findings amplify concerns about the impacts of biodiversity loss on our global food systems and highlight that utilization of biodiversity for consumption may far exceed what is commercially traded.

Small-scale fishing households facing COVID-19: The case of Lake Victoria, Kenya.

Small-scale fisheries underpin the aquatic food supply, and are facing acute challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to examine how small-scale fishing households, including fishers and fish traders, are responding to COVID-19 and associated movement restrictions around Lake Victoria, Kenya. We conducted phone interviews with 88 households in three riparian communities around Lake Victoria to examine shifts in fish consumption, fishing activities, price changes, and coping strategies. We found that households are consuming less fish, perceiving high fish prices, and coping by more often selling than eating fish. Most fishers and traders reported spending less time fishing and trading, and concern about being infected with COVID-19 was high. Our findings suggest movement restrictions and COVID-19 concern, along with high lake levels in the region, may limit fishing activities and fish access. Controlling COVID-19 and supporting opportunities for fishers and traders to safely return to their livelihood activities will be paramount to the recovery of small-scale fishing communities today. Our findings can also support planning to mitigate the impacts of future crises on small-scale fishing communities.

Fishers' response to temperature change reveals the importance of integrating human behavior in climate change analysis.

Climate change will reshape ecological dynamics. Yet, how temperature increases alter the behavior and resource use of people reliant on natural resources remains underexplored. Consequent behavior shifts have the potential to mitigate or accelerate climate impacts on livelihoods and food security. Particularly within the small-scale inland fisheries that support approximately 10% of the global population, temperature changes likely affect both fish and fishers. To analyze how changing temperatures alter households' fishing behavior, we examined fishing effort and fish catch in a major inland fishery. We used longitudinal observational data from households in Cambodia, which has the highest per-capita consumption of inland fish in the world. Higher temperatures caused households to reduce their participation in fishing but had limited net effects on fish catch. Incorporating human behavioral responses to changing environmental conditions will be fundamental to determining how climate change affects rural livelihoods, food production, and food access.