Publication Date:
2011-07-23
Description:
Low-trophic level species account for more than 30% of global fisheries production and contribute substantially to global food security. We used a range of ecosystem models to explore the effects of fishing low-trophic level species on marine ecosystems, including marine mammals and seabirds, and on other commercially important species. In five well-studied ecosystems, we found that fishing these species at conventional maximum sustainable yield (MSY) levels can have large impacts on other parts of the ecosystem, particularly when they constitute a high proportion of the biomass in the ecosystem or are highly connected in the food web. Halving exploitation rates would result in much lower impacts on marine ecosystems while still achieving 80% of MSY.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Smith, Anthony D M -- Brown, Christopher J -- Bulman, Catherine M -- Fulton, Elizabeth A -- Johnson, Penny -- Kaplan, Isaac C -- Lozano-Montes, Hector -- Mackinson, Steven -- Marzloff, Martin -- Shannon, Lynne J -- Shin, Yunne-Jai -- Tam, Jorge -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Aug 26;333(6046):1147-50. doi: 10.1126/science.1209395. Epub 2011 Jul 21.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Wealth from Oceans Flagship, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia. tony.d.smith@csiro.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21778363" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
*Aquatic Organisms
;
Biodiversity
;
Biomass
;
Birds
;
*Ecosystem
;
*Fisheries
;
*Fishes
;
*Food Chain
;
Mammals
;
Models, Biological
;
Oceans and Seas
;
Population Dynamics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink