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Human activities have shifted aquatic ecosystems far from prehistoric baseline states. A lack of long-termÌýdatasets that describe organisms and their habitats prior to human disturbance hampers theÌýunderstanding of human-caused impacts. Fish are excellent, and largely underused, proxies that can revealÌýthe degree, direction and scale of shifts in aquatic ecosystems. Time-based data sourced fromÌýcontemporary, archived and ancient fish samples can improve our understanding of how aquaticÌýecosystems have changed. This range of biological, ecological and environmental data from fish can allowÌýecosystem baseline states to be better defined, providing a reference point to establish policy goals forÌýfuture conservation and exploitation practices.

This research was published in Reviews in Fish Biology and FisheriesÌýunder the title .



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Image:ÌýHistorical fishing records and various biological parts of individual fish provide different types of data thatÌýcan be used as proxies of aquatic baselines. Inset: Parts of the fish that can provide proxy data.

Photograph: A fisherman hauls a catch of Australasian snapper from the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, NewÌýZealand c. 1940. (The Alexander Turnbull Library: Reference No.: PAColl-3060- 067).