From Systems Ecology to Sustainable Fisheries

Abstract

Several problems of marine fisheries (e.g. harmful algal blooms, overfishing) are closely related and should not be studied in separation. It is being widely recognized that a multi-species, systems view is needed to better understand and manage these issues. The combination of well-established mathematical fields (e.g. graph theory), recently developed computational methods (e.g. process algebras) and modern databases (e.g. high-resolution marine food webs) supports systems-level marine fisheries research. In my talk, I will present some old and new methods and discuss how are they related and how to choose the adequate ones. In particular, I will sketch an individual-based, stochastic dynamical food web simulation framework. The key outcome will be a quantitative importance rank of system components (typically species) and this kind of result may help marine ecosystem management.