Further evaluations of an empirical MP for Indian Ocean skipjack tuna

The primary objective of this work is to develop a Management Procedure (MP) for Indian
Ocean Skipjack tuna (SKJ), which includes specification of the data inputs, harvest control
rule (HCR) and management outputs, and that has been fully tested using an appropriate
simulation framework.
Following the presentation of developmental work to the Working Party on Methods (Edwards,
2020, IOTC, 2020a) and the Technical Committee on Management Procedures (Edwards, 2021b,
IOTC, 2021c), in which a suitable simulation framework was proposed, initial evaluations of
an empirical MP were presented to the Working Party on Methods by Edwards (2021a). The
current work presents further simulations, extending the structural uncertainties in the Operating
Model and including robustness trials for the MP.