1 Status and future perspectives for pikeperch (Sander lucioperca) stocks in Europe 1 2 3 Eglė Jakubavičiūtė* a , Timo Arula b , Justas Dainys a , J. Tyrell Deweber c , Harry Gorfine a,d , Laura S. Härkönen e , Pekka 4 Hyvärinen f , Kristiina Hommik b , Jan Kubecka g , Linas Ložys a , Noora Mustamäki h , Rahmat Naddafi h , Mikko Olin i , Žilvinas 5 Pūtys a , Elor Sepp b , Allan T. Souza g , Andrius Šiaulys a , Väino Vaino b and Asta Audzijonyte aj 6 7 8 a Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania 9 b Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, Tallinn, Estonia 10 c Fisheries Research Station Baden-Württemberg, Langenargen, Germany 11 d School of Biosciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia 12 e Natural Resources Institute Finland, Migratory fish and regulated rivers, Oulu, Finland 13 f Natural Resources Institute Finland, Migratory fish and regulated rivers, Paltamo, Finland 14 g Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice, Czech Republic 15 h Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Aquatic Resources, Uppsala, Sweden 16 i Natural Resources Institute Finland, Fisheries and fish resources, Helsinki, Finland 17 j Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania 18 19 *Corresponding author: egle.jakubaviciute@gamtc.lt, ORCID: 0000-0002-4928-7829 20 21 Contributions: 22 23 Conceptualization, methodology: AA, HG, EJ 24 Data collection: EJ, LL, JD, ŽP, MO, ES, VV, JTD, LSH, PH, KH, RN, ATS, JK 25 Data curation: EJ, LL, LSH, PH, RN, JK, 26 Contributing country specific data sources and methodology: EJ, AŠ, AA, JTD, RN, PH, JK, NM, MO, ES, ATS 27 Funding acquisition: AA, LL 28 Visualization: EJ, AA 29 Writing – original draft: EJ, HG, JD, AA, MO, JTD, RN 30 Writing – review & editing: EJ, JD, AA, AŠ, ES, VV, JTD, MO, LSH, PH, KH, RN, ATS, JK, ŽP 31 32 Acknowledgements 33 This study has received funding from European Regional Development Fund (Project No. 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-02-0006) 34 under grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT). In Sweden data curation and analyses were 35 supported by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (Förvaltningsmål nationellt förvaltade arter för år 36 2020-2022” (HaV dnr 896-20) and the Czech National Agency of Agricultural Research, project QK22020134 Innovative 37 fisheries management of a large reservoir. Data collection for Lake Oulujärvi has been funded by Fortum Power and Heat 38 Ltd., UMP-Kymmene Ltd., city of Kajaani and the municipality of Paltamo, and data management by H2020-INFRAIA 39 (#730938, 871120). The authors thank Freddie Heather and Romain Forestier for help with figures. 40 41 42