Population dynamics of spatially distributed, meroplanktonic, exploited marine invertebrates ...

• Main Author: Botsford, Louis W.
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: ICES MSS Vol.199 - Shellfish life histories and shellfishery models 2023
• Subjects: Fisheries and aquaculture; Snow crab
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.19271396; https://ices-library.figshare.com/articles/report/Population_dynamics_of_spatially_distributed_meroplanktonic_exploited_marine_invertebrates/19271396

I describe the population dynamic theory appropriate to harvested marine invertebrates. The dynamics of age-structured models of populations with density-dependent recruitment illustrate the implications of life history characteristics for stability and recruitment variability in crustacean populations. Both a dramatic decrease in recruitment survival with density and a narrow age distribution of adult influence on recruitment (as might be caused by size selective harvest) are destabilizing and can lead to increased variability. Explicit consideration of sex structure in these models reveals how single sex harvest can be destabilizing and lead to greater variability in recruitment, while harvesting both sexes is stabilizing. These results have direct implications for the harvest of Dungeness crab, snow crab, and American lobster. The shortcomings of considering a coastally distributed population to be a single, local population have led to an approach which explicitly considers the spatial distribution. ...