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Linking land use change to recreational fishery valuation with a spatially explicit behavior model: A case study from Tampa Bay, FL USA
Citation:
Fulford, R., M. Russell, D. Yoskowitz, AND Johne Rogers. Linking land use change to recreational fishery valuation with a spatially explicit behavior model: A case study from Tampa Bay, FL USA. A Commuity on Ecosystem Services, Washington, DC, December 08 - 12, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
Describe a model used to project impacts of climate change and land use on value and production of estuarine ecosystem services
Description:
Drawing a link between habitat change and production and delivery of ecosystem services is a priority in coastal estuarine ecosystems. This link is needed to fully understand how human communities can influence ecosystem sustainability. Mechanistic modeling tools are highly functional for exploring this link as they allow for the synthesis of multiple ecological and behavioral dynamics into a projection of cumulative effects. We developed a spatially-explicit individual-based model intended to explore the link between coastal habitat change and both the production and delivery of recreational fishing to anglers. This model tracks growth, mortality, and movement of individual fish based on temporally and spatially dynamic habitat characteristics and translates the outcome into a projection of annual net fish production. The model also can track angler behavior and distribution as a function of habitat features and allows for a projection of fish-angler interactions and the impact on recreational fishing. This model has been applied in an index estuary (Tampa Bay) to address two unique stressors of estuarine habitat (Climate variability and impacts of land use change) to examine the influence of mechanistic assumptions on production and delivery outcomes. Findings demonstrate the transferability of the model between ecosystems and stressors. Simulation results also suggest that the link between climatic and anthropogenic stressors related to local decision making, such as land use change, and fishery health are dependent on behavioral responses, as well as specific habitat alterations. Mechanistic models such as the one use in this study are data intensive, but valuable tools for projecting the impacts of estuarine habitat change because they are easily transferred between systems and are not as dependent on empirically derived relationships, which may also be altered by habitat change.