1. Separability is the assumption, made in some age-structured stock assessment models (used to track changes in fishing mortality by fish age and by fishing year) that the fishing mortality matrix can be partitioned into two components: An age-specific component that does not vary over time (i.e. a constant exploitation pattern), and an annual multiplier that scales the age-specific pattern up or down; 2. Independence among resources and in economics; an ability to substitute environmental inputs in order to produce outputs. Therefore, these resources may be managed or utilized separately due to the lack of strong linkages to other large marine ecosystem (LME) components.