Possible ecosystem impacts of applying MSY policies from single-species assessment

Ecosim models have been fitted to time-series data for a wide variety of ecosystems for which there are long-term data that confirm the models' ability to reproduce past responses of many species to harvesting. We subject these model ecosystems to a variety of harvest policies, including option...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inICES journal of marine science Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 558 - 568
Main Authors Walters, Carl J., Christensen, Villy, Martell, Steven J., Kitchell, James F.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford University Press 2005
Subjects
Ecosim
ecosystem models
Marine
MSY
multispecies production
overharvesting
ecosystem models
MSY
Ecosim
multispecies production
overharvesting
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Ecosim models have been fitted to time-series data for a wide variety of ecosystems for which there are long-term data that confirm the models' ability to reproduce past responses of many species to harvesting. We subject these model ecosystems to a variety of harvest policies, including options based on harvesting each species at its maximum sustainable yield (MSY) fishing rate. We show that widespread application of single-species MSY policies would in general cause severe deterioration in ecosystem structure, in particular the loss of top predator species. This supports the long-established practice in fisheries management of protecting at least some smaller “forage” species specifically for their value in supporting larger piscivores.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/HXZ-JK0HDK0F-J
istex:294C6ADC2EB31499A08AE25AFD3F2705950FB5F6
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:1054-3139
1095-9289
DOI:10.1016/j.icesjms.2004.12.005