Indian Ocean Tuna Commission yellowfin tuna stock synthesis assessment grid

The Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations commonly develop
uncertainty grids to condition models in integrated stock assessments to
account for uncertainties in parameters that cannot be estimated from the
data. For example, by constructing multidimensional grids that consist of
different plausible combinations of assumptions, fixed parameter values,
and data sets. It is not always clear, however, whether this is intended
as an uncertainty analysis or a sensitivity analysis. The choice of
assessment model scenarios and ways of estimating uncertainty has an
impact on the risk of exceeding the limit and missing target reference
points. Therefore, to better understand the impact of uncertainty on stock
assessment advice and the risk of failing to meet conservation and
sustainability objectives, we used the uncertainty grid developed by the
Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) for albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga),
a full factorial design with 1,440 model configurations (IOTC, 2019). This
is sufficient to provide contrast, but not too big to be
unmanageable.  IOTC. 2019 (23-27 July 2019). Report of the 7th
Session of the IOTC Working Party on Temperate Tunas: Assessment
Meeting. Tech. rept. IOTC-2019-WPTmT07(AS)-R. Indian Ocean Tuna
Commission, Shizuoka, Japan