The 1999 Flatfish Symposium: where to go from now?

A summary report of the 1999 Flatfish Symposium is presented. The Symposium was built on the themes of the previous Symposia, whereby the link is through processes related to recruitment. As in the previous Symposia, the papers presented have a strong focus on temperate species and basic information on (sub)tropical species is still lacking. The lack of insight into (sub)stock structure is still a problem and more insight is necessary into the methodologies for determining and describing stock structure. Another important unresolved issue concerns the quantitative understanding of the physical processes that affect the cross-shelf transport and exchange of eggs and larvae. Finally, there is a need for bioenergetic approaches to habitat quality and quantity both at the individual and population level to assess the qualitative and quantitative use of habitats in space and time. Applying global information systems (GIS) might be promising in this respect. With respect to management issues two items are of utmost importance: the collapse and recovery of stocks and the problems relating to re-stocking.