The Role of External Analysis in Fisheries Science
- 1 March 1982
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
- Vol. 111 (2) , 165-170
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1982)111<165:troeai>2.0.co;2
Abstract
Conventional single‐species models continue to find appropriate application in fisheries analysis, but their use is increasingly recognized as unsuited to a variety of questions. Accordingly, interest has shifted toward the potential of multispecies, integral models of fish production systems. Systems theory indicates that this transition to more broadly conceived systems is revolutionary in its scope and form, and cannot be based upon simple aggregation of single‐species principles. Prior observation and theory, based upon new classes of community and ecosystem observables, are required before the internal dynamics of individual fish stocks or larger functional groups can be properly understood. The morphoedaphic index (MEI), which predicts potential fish harvest as a power function of total dissolved solids divided by mean depth, is a relatively generalized member of a class of highly integrated models of fish production systems. Apart from its demonstrated utility in a variety of management applications, the MEI is a prototypic example of the current transition in fisheries analysis—a transition with important implications for the future conduct of fisheries science.This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: