BE/CNH: Biocomplexity and Fisheries Sustainability

BE/CNH：生物复杂性和渔业可持续性

• 批准号: 0410437
• 负责人: Ray Hilborn
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0410437&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CNH; Biocomplexity; Fisheries; Sustainability

Humans have exploited animal populations by hunting and fishing for thousands of years, but extensive commercial harvest of animals is now largely limited to aquatic ecosystems. Even in marine ecosystems, evidence has accumulated that many fisheries may not be sustainable. This lack of sustainability stems in part from the inability of the fish populations to generate enough surplus production to meet the expectations of the fisheries. In addition to this biotic dimension, however, there are equally important human dimensions, including regulations, investments in vessels and gear, locations of communities, property rights and fishing licenses, and other traditional and cultural aspects of fishing. Aquatic ecologists have described many aspects of the complexity of biotic systems that affect the productivity of fish populations, including diversity of phsical habitats, effects of changing environmental conditions, intra-specific competition, nutrient cycling, and community dynamics. These studies have not been adequately integrated, however, with work on the complexity of human systems, the commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries that are intimately and inextricably linked to the population dynamics of the fishes. The sockeye salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, Alaska, present an ideal opportunity to understand the linkages between complex biotic and human systems, thereby extending basic understanding of these critical components of healthy human and natural communities. These fisheries, operating at commercial levels for a century, are among the best examples of sustainability, yet their complexity has only recently been investigated. Sockeye salmon breed in streams, ponds, rivers, and beaches associated with large lakes in five major drainage basins, and their offspring rear in the lakes for one or two years before migrating to sea for another two or three years. Tens of millions of these salmon return as adults each year, and fractions of the total are caught in mobile gillnet fisheries, fixed-site set net fisheries, recreational fisheries, and subsistence fisheries. Forecasts and in-season information are used by managers to decide on appropriate levels of fishing and by fishermen do decide where to fish. The forecasts are based on scientific information derived from research on climate-related and density-dependent processes governing the dynamics of the salmon populations.The primary concepts of interest in this interdisciplinary research project are the resilience of the biotic system (in this case, salmon abundance and diversity) to harvest and environmental change and the resilience of the human communities in the face of these changes in salmon abundance and associated changes in price and costs of fishing. The fundamental hypothesis is that the ability of the salmon populations to persist in the face of changing environmental conditions and the ability of the human communities to persist in the face of changing social and economic forces both depend on the diversity of "life history" strategies as well as a blend of site attachment and mobility. The overall objective of this research project is to test this hypothesis and thereby understand the coupling between salmon populations and human communities. The project will pursue this objective with five themes at increasing levels of scale: (1) the links between genetics and life history traits of salmon that result from post-glacial colonization and contemporary homing and gene flow, (2) the role of climate in determining the productivity of salmon populations using different breeding habitats and different nursery lakes, (3) the importance of marine-derived nutrients (from salmon carcasses) in the productivity of lake ecosystems and success of salmon populations, (4) the ways in which the current fishery management policy of maximum sustainable yield could be modified to consider economic and ecological processes to the benefit of both humans and the natural ecosystem, and (5) the extent to which the regulatory policies should consider the behavior of fishermen in an effort to rationalize the size and capacity of the fisheries. The project will be closely coordinated with the agency regulating the fisheries (Alaska Department of Fish and Game) and the community development organizations in the area (especially the Bristol Bay Native Association). Outreach efforts will include extensive contacts with local schools and economic development groups. The findings will have significant implications for theories of sustainability and broad application to the many other systems where human communities depend on natural resources that are subject to the effects of those humans, and to external environmental changes. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2004 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

几千年来，人类通过狩猎和捕鱼来利用动物种群，但现在动物的广泛商业收获在很大程度上仅限于水生生态系统。即使在海洋生态系统中，也有越来越多的证据表明许多渔业可能是不可持续的。这种缺乏可持续性的部分原因是鱼类种群无法产生足够的剩余产量来满足渔业的期望。然而，除了生物层面之外，还有同样重要的人文层面，包括法规、对船只和渔具的投资、社区位置、财产权和捕鱼许可证，以及捕鱼的其他传统和文化方面。水生生态学家描述了影响鱼类种群生产力的生物系统复杂性的许多方面，包括物理生境的多样性、环境条件变化的影响、种内竞争、营养循环和群落动态。然而，这些研究没有与人类系统的复杂性、与鱼类种群动态密切相关的商业、休闲和自给性渔业的工作充分结合。阿拉斯加州布里斯托尔湾的Sockeye鲑鱼渔业为了解复杂的生物和人类系统之间的联系提供了一个理想的机会，从而扩大了对健康的人类和自然社区的这些关键组成部分的基本了解。这些渔业在商业层面上运营了一个世纪，是可持续发展的最佳范例之一，但其复杂性直到最近才被调查。红鲑鱼在与五个主要流域的大型湖泊有关的溪流、池塘、河流和海滩上繁殖，它们的后代在湖泊中饲养一到两年，然后再迁徙到海洋中两三年。每年有数千万条这样的鲑鱼成年后返回，其中一部分是在流动刺网渔业、固定地点固定网渔业、休闲渔业和自给渔业中捕捞的。预报和季节信息被管理者用来决定适当的捕捞水平，而渔民则决定在哪里捕鱼。这些预测是基于对控制鲑鱼种群动态的气候相关和密度相关过程的研究得出的科学信息。这一跨学科研究项目感兴趣的主要概念是生物系统(在这种情况下，三文鱼丰度和多样性)对收获和环境变化的弹性，以及人类社区面对三文鱼丰度变化和相关的价格和捕捞成本变化的弹性。基本假设是，面对不断变化的环境条件，鲑鱼种群的生存能力，以及人类群落面对不断变化的社会和经济力量的生存能力，都取决于“生活史”策略的多样性，以及场地依附和流动性的混合。这项研究项目的总体目标是检验这一假说，从而了解鲑鱼种群和人类群落之间的耦合。该项目将追求这一目标，在规模上增加五个主题：(1)由于冰河后殖民和当代归巢和基因流动而产生的鲑鱼的遗传和生活史特征之间的联系，(2)气候在决定使用不同繁殖生境和不同育苗湖泊的鲑鱼种群生产力方面的作用，(3)海洋获取的营养物质(来自鲑鱼身体)在湖泊生态系统的生产力和鲑鱼种群的成功中的重要性，(4)如何修改现有的最大可持续产量的渔业管理政策，以考虑到对人类和自然生态系统都有益的经济和生态过程，以及(5)监管政策应在多大程度上考虑渔民的行为，以努力使渔业的规模和能力合理化。该项目将与管理渔业的机构(阿拉斯加州渔猎部)和该地区的社区发展组织(特别是布里斯托尔湾土著协会)密切协调。外展工作将包括与当地学校和经济发展团体进行广泛接触。这些发现将对可持续性理论产生重大影响，并将其广泛应用于许多其他系统，在这些系统中，人类社区依赖于自然资源，而自然资源受到这些人类和外部环境变化的影响。该项目得到了2004财年环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的一个奖项的支持，该竞赛的重点是自然和人类耦合系统的动态变化。