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Effects of adaptive harvesting on fishing down processes and resilience changes in predator-prey and tritrophic systemsuse asterix (*) to get italics
Eric Tromeur, Nicolas LoeuillePlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
2023
<p>Many world fisheries display a declining mean trophic level of catches. This "fishing down the food web" is often attributed to reduced densities of high-trophic-level species. We show here that the fishing down pattern can actually emerge from the adaptive harvesting of two- and three-species food webs, where changes in fishing patterns are driven by the relative profitabilities of the harvested species. Shifting fishing patterns from a focus on higher trophic levels to a focus on lower trophic levels can yield abrupt changes in the system, strongly impacting species densities. In predator-prey systems, such regime shifts occur when the predator species is highly valuable relative to the prey, and when the top-down control on the prey is strong. Moreover, we find that when the two species are jointly harvested, high adaptation speeds can reduce the resilience of fisheries. Our results therefore suggest that flexibility in harvesting strategies will not necessarily benefit fisheries but may actually harm their sustainability.</p>
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1154884You should fill this box only if you chose 'Codes have been used in this study'. URL must start with http:// or https://
Adaptive harvesting; fishing pattern; fishing down the food web; regime shift; resilience; social-ecological system
NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).
Biodiversity, Community ecology, Food webs, Foraging, Population ecology, Theoretical ecology
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2022-05-03 21:09:35
Amanda Lynn Caskenette