Economic value of ecological information in ecosystem-based natural resource management depends on exploitation history.

ABSTRACT: Ecosystem approaches to natural resource management are seen as a way to provide better outcomes for ecosystems and for people, yet the nature and strength of interactions among ecosystem components is usually unknown. Here we characterize the economic benefits of ecological knowledge through a simple model of fisheries that target a predator (piscivore) and its prey. We solve for the management (harvest) trajectory that maximizes net present value (NPV) for different ecological interactions and initial conditions that represent different levels of exploitation history. Optimal management trajectories generally approached similar harvest levels, but the pathways toward those levels varied considerably by ecological scenario. Application of the wrong harvest trajectory, which would happen i

SUBMITTER: Essington TE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5816180 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature