Abstract

What do telephones, televisions, and telescopes have in common? They are devices for transmitting sounds or images over distances. In much the same way, a new scientific paradigm—the telecoupling framework—enables simultaneous assessment of socioeconomic and environmental interactions among local and distant locations (Liu et al. 2013). The framework is revolutionizing the way social and natural scientists understand and provide for sustainable resource management over space and time in our increasingly connected world. The telecoupling framework was developed from the integration of two different but related concepts: teleconnections (i.e., environmental interactions among natural systems over geographic space and time) and globalization (i.e., socioeconomic interactions among human systems over distances). The framework focuses on the structure, functioning, dynamics, trade-offs, and synergies of “telecouplings”: socioeconomic and environmental interactions among human and natural systems over distances. Because fish promote global food and nutrition security and support a growing quaculture sector and commercial, recreational, and subsistence industries (Taylor et al.2016), fisheries are ideal systems in which to apply the telecoupling framework to better understand the impacts of local andmore distant socioeconomic and environmental interactions that alter fisheries productivity, thereby yielding insights for fisheries management.