Data up to 2013. Landings of red grouper in the US Gulf of Mexico represent approximately 38% of total landings in FAO Area 31. Landings from years 2014 to 2016 show relative stability

1) Questions were raised in workshop discussions about changes in reproductive success with age and with population concentration. Although it is known that reproductive success is mitigated by social factors, the degree and extent of mitigation is not well understood. More data are needed to better address the topic, including addressing time-varying changes within age categories. How much variation exists in size at age? Insufficient information leads to greater uncertainty and can have impacts on reference points. 2) The review panel raised questions throughout the evaluation of the assessment reports about the basis or bases of decisions to use the variables actually used. The recommendation is for analysts to provide a justification or rationale for the selection criteria. Review panel evaluations could be more accurately motivated if the selection criteria were better reported. Selection criteria would thereby be carried forward in the evaluations. 3) Paralleling the AW Report, discussions in the Review Workshop focused on initial conditions of the red grouper stock, including assessment of the stock from 1986 to 1993. Composition data was more complete from 1993, raising questions about methods to approach composition prior to that data, in effect, how to decide on what methods and procedures to use and how to establish preferences. The sense of the Review Workshop members was that procedures of ramping up were needed. 4) The core problem in the red grouper assessment was the data on discards. Procedures for reporting discards were not consistent across the fleets, and the fit to indices were poor, leading to major sources of uncertainty. Numerous sensitivity runs helped to reduce the lack of fit, especially up-weighting the commercial fishery dependent data, but problems remain. Discards were missing from the shark longline fishery, raising questions about the amount of resultant uncertainty. Research to address best practices in the reporting of discards is needed in regard to the red grouper stock. Especially useful, also, would be to increase the number of observers and observations among the commercial fleets. 5) Develop a standard protocol for ensuring that appropriate uncertainty in recruitment is applied when developing projections. Using a long-term average recruitment, as the median was used in this assessment, may lead to very different projections, and thus different management advice, compared to a lower or higher average recruitment based on a more recent time-period that may be more likely to reflect the biological/environmental realty of the stock. 6) Research is needed to help address questions about how fecundity can best be measured. Fecundity is a preferred measure for stock biomass and is a function of the number of eggs produced, but it has to be measured indirectly. Gonad weight can be used as a proxy, but obtaining reliable weights can be problematic, dependent in part on methods and timing of data acquisition. Research to address more accurate measurement of gonad weight and to develop protocols would be helpful. 7) Actual measures of individual growth are needed within age categories, as opposed to relying on common assumptions about growth rates and outcomes. Differential growth rates may occur in stock sub-structure within localized species, due to characteristics of the stock and ecosystem variables, or both. They may also affect schedules for hermaphroditic changes, impacting sex-age class composition. 8) Sensitivity runs to assess the impact of the 2005 red tide event on red grouper landings did not show any significant differences from the base model, including fit to discards. Documentation of the red tide mortality, however, presents methodological difficulties. Although analyses of data suggest that red tide primarily affected ages 0+, composition of the red tide kills are difficult to measure, given problems of access to the red tide zones and incomplete records of age, size, and sex in the kills. In addition, red tide events may be best considered in reference to ecosystem considerations (SEDAR42-5W-01). As environmental indices become incorporated into single stock species, criteria for inclusion have to be tested and measured, toward a goal of balanced biological and mechanistic explanation, statistical significance, and predictive performance. More research for red tide impacts on red grouper stock status is especially appropriate, given that the majority of landings are on Florida’s West Continental Shelf, where high concentrations of red tide tend to be located. 9) Red grouper are found throughout the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic from Brazil to the southeastern US. Catch levels and age composition data from Cuba, the Caribbean, and especially Mexico would allow for more complete stock assessment. Data could be obtained from the Mexican organization MEXAS. 10) The average age and thus size of females changing to males are known, but a more complete understanding of the conditions under which the changes occur would be helpful for assessing stock size. The number of males in relation to minimum stock size would be a useful metric for stock assessments.