CRB: Exploring the Significance of Model Structure in Viability and Harvesting Analyses

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

9402314 Kareiva Models are playing an increasingly important role in resource management and conservation biology. These "applied ecological models" are used in a different spirit than basic ecological theory -- they are used to project scenarios or identify management options for particular species, and are based upon sketchy data often analyzed under tremendous time pressure. Typically, rather arbitrary decisions are made about model structure -- whether or not to include age and stage structure, how many age classes, what type of environmental variability should be included, should density dependence be considered, and so forth. Unfortunately, the implications of decisions about model structure are virtually never explored in even the most rudimentary fashion. In this Conservation and Restoration Biology research, the PI's will perform a computationally intense comparison of different resource management and viability models in which simulated data is modeled in different ways, and the performance of the different modeling approaches is contrasted. To ground these studies in real world problems, the PI's will also apply the same wide variety of models to two case studies: a viability model for the Northern Spotted Owl, and a harvesting model for the Serengeti wildebeest. The goals are threefold: (1) to use simulated data sets to understand how aspects of life history structure and environmental variability influence the sensitivity of model results to model structure, (2) to develop convenient computational approaches for evaluating different models when presented with real data, and (3) to alert applied ecologists to the danger of settling on one model structure without exploring alternatives. %%% This research will provide an important linkage between resource management, conservation biology, and ecological theory. The need to address the advantages and limitations of applied ecological models is paramount. Too often, decisions are made with incomplete data, and based on incomplete an alyses. This research will provide the basis for assessing the utility of various models for the conservation of species and management of natural resources. ***