An empirical model of the Baltic Sea reveals the importance of social dynamics for ecological regime shifts.

ABSTRACT: Regime shifts triggered by human activities and environmental changes have led to significant ecological and socioeconomic consequences in marine and terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Ecological processes and feedbacks associated with regime shifts have received considerable attention, but human individual and collective behavior is rarely treated as an integrated component of such shifts. Here, we used generalized modeling to develop a coupled social-ecological model that integrated rich social and ecological data to investigate the role of social dynamics in the 1980s Baltic Sea cod boom and collapse. We showed that psychological, economic, and regulatory aspects of fisher decision making, in addition to ecological interactions, contributed both to the temporary persistence of the cod bo

SUBMITTER: Lade SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4568251 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature