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CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF COASTAL HABITAT ALTERATIONS ON FISHERY RESOURCES: TOWARD PREDICTION AT REGIONAL SCALES
Citation:
JORDAN, S. J., L. M. SMITH, AND J. NESTLERODE. CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF COASTAL HABITAT ALTERATIONS ON FISHERY RESOURCES: TOWARD PREDICTION AT REGIONAL SCALES. Ecology and Society. Resilience Alliance Publications, Waterloo, Canada, 14(1):16, (2009).
Impact/Purpose:
Description of a modeling approach to predict habitat effects on populations of selected Gulf of Mexico fishery species.
Description:
The integrity of aquatic ecosystems and habitats at the land-sea interface is challeneged by several forces, ranging from plot scale destruction and disturbance, to watershed scale perturbations, to global changes in climate and human demographis. The scientific challenge is to model and predict the cumulative effects of these forces on coastal ecosystems and their services to society. Our most valuable fisheries are dependent on functional coastal habitats for sustained productivity, but essential relationships between habitat attributes and fish and invertebrate population dynamics are virtually unexplored at teh scales required for cumulative impact analysis. Building pattern-oriented models that link vital biological rates measured at the patch scale with regional-scale geospatial coverages and long-term fisheries data appears to be apromising approach. Such models could be used to evaluate a wide range of scenarios of cumulative habitat loss, alteration, and restoration for their effects on the sustainability of coastal fisheries. With the addition of economic coefficients or variables, the models could be used in benefit-cost analysis to inform management decisions and policies at local, regional, and national scales. We describe a modeling approach to predicting habitat effects on populations of selected Gulf of Mexico fishery species.
URLs/Downloads:
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF COASTAL HABITAT ALTERATIONS ON FISHERY RESOURCES
CUMULATIVE EFFECTS OF COASTAL HABITAT ALTERATIONS ON FISHERY RESOURCES: TOWARD PREDICTION AT REGIONAL SCALES