Fish are one of the most important global food sources, supplying a significant share of the world's protein consumption. From stocks of wild Alaskan salmon and North Sea cod to entire fish communities with myriad species, fisheries require careful management to ensure that stocks remain productive, and mathematical models are essential tools for doing so. Fish Ecology, Evolution, and Exploitation is an authoritative introduction to the modern size- and trait-based approach to fish populations and communities.Ken Andersen covers the theoretical foundations, mathematical formulations, and real-world applications of this powerful new modeling method, which is grounded in the latest ecological theory and population biology. He begins with fundamental assumptions on the level of individuals and goes on to cover population demography and fisheries impact assessments. He shows how size- and trait-based models shed new light on familiar fisheries concepts such as maximum sustainable yield and fisheries selectivity--insights that classic age-based theory can't provide--and develops novel evolutionary impacts of fishing. Andersen extends the theory to entire fish communities and uses it to support the ecosystem approach to fisheries management, and forges critical links between trait-based methods and evolutionary ecology.Accessible to ecologists with a basic quantitative background, this incisive book unifies the thinking in ecology and fisheries science and is an indispensable reference for anyone seeking to apply size- and trait-based models to fish demography, fisheries impact assessments, and fish evolutionary ecology.

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Notation
• 1. Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory
  • 1.1 What Characterizes a Good Theory?
  • 1.2 How to Read This Book
• Part I. Individuals
  • 2. Size Spectrum Theory
    • 2.1 What Is Body Size?
    • 2.2 What Is a Size Spectrum?
    • 2.3 Scaling of Physiology with Body Size
    • 2.4 What Is the Size Spectrum Exponent?
    • 2.5 What Is the Predation Mortality?
    • 2.6 How Long Are Marine Food Chains?
    • 2.7 What Is the Trophic Efficiency?
    • 2.8 Summary
  • 3. Individual Growth and Reproduction
    • 3.1 The von Bertalanffy Growth Model
    • 3.2 Asymptotic Size as a Master Trait
    • 3.3 Bioenergetic Formulation of the Growth Equation
    • 3.4 Which Other Traits Describe Fish Life Histories?
    • 3.5 Summary
• Part II. Populations
  • 4. Demography
    • 4.1 What Is the Size Structure of a Population?
    • 4.2 Reproduction, Recruitment, and Density Dependence
    • 4.3 Why Use a Stock-Recruitment Relation?
    • 4.4 What Is the Physiological Mortality?
    • 4.5 Summary
  • 5. Fishing
    • 5.1 Fisheries Selectivity
    • 5.2 Impact of Fishing on Small and Large Species
    • 5.3 Fisheries Reference Points
    • 5.4 Which Gear Selectivity Maximizes Yield?
    • 5.5 Summary
  • 6. Fisheries-Induced Evolution
    • 6.1 Which Selection Responses Do We Expect?
    • 6.2 Quantitative Genetics
    • 6.3 Evolutionary Impact Assessment of Fishing
    • 6.4 Summary: What Is an Evolutionary Enlightened Fisheries Management?
  • 7. Population Dynamics
    • 7.1 What Is the Population Growth Rate?
    • 7.2 How Fast Does a Population Recover from Overfishing?
    • 7.3 How Does a Population Respond to Environmental Fluctuations?
    • 7.4 Summary
• Part III. Traits
  • 8. Teleosts versus Elasmobranchs
    • 8.1 How Do Teleosts and Elasmobranchs Differ?
    • 8.2 How Sensitive Are Elasmobranchs to Fishing?
    • 8.3 Why Do Teleosts Make Small Eggs?
    • 8.4 Why Do Elasmobranchs Make Large Offspring?
    • 8.5 Summary
  • 9. Trait-Based Approach to Fish Ecology
    • 9.1 Life-History Strategies
    • 9.2 Traits and Trade-offs
    • 9.3 The Sweet Spot of Complexity
• Part IV. Communities
  • 10. Consumer-Resource Dynamics and Emergent Density Dependence
    • 10.1 A Consumer-Resource Model
    • 10.2 Emergent Density Dependence
    • 10.3 When in Life Does Density Dependence Occur?
    • 10.4 Fishing on a Stock with Emergent Density Dependence
    • 10.5 Summary
  • 11. Trait Structure of the Fish Community
    • 11.1 Structure of an Unfished Community
    • 11.2 Dynamic Community Model
    • 11.3 Dynamic Community Model versus Analytic Theory
    • 11.4 Species versus Traits
    • 11.5 Summary
  • 12. Community Effects of Fishing
    • 12.1 Trophic Cascades
    • 12.2 What Is the Impact of Forage Fishing?
    • 12.3 What Is the Maximum Sustainable Yield of a Community?
    • 12.4 Size- and Trait-Based Models for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management
• Part V. Epilogue
  • 13. The Size- and Trait-Based Approach
    • 13.1 Size versus Age-Based Approaches for Fisheries Science
    • 13.2 Future Directions of Size- and Trait-Based Theory
• Part VI. Appendixes
  • A. Single Stock Size Spectrum Model
  • B. Consumer-Resource Model
  • C. Community Model
• Bibliography
• Index