title: Preventing the collapse of the Baltic cod stock through an ecosystem-based management approach.
abstract: Worldwide a number of fish stocks have collapsed because of overfishing and climate-induced ecosystem changes. Developing ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) to prevent these catastrophic events in the future requires ecological models incorporating both internal food-web dynamics and external drivers such as fishing and climate. Using a stochastic food-web model for a large marine ecosystem (i.e., the Baltic Sea) hosting a commercially important cod stock, we were able to reconstruct the history of the stock. Moreover we demonstrate that in hindsight the collapse could only have been avoidable by adapting fishing pressure to environmental conditions and food-web interactions. The modeling approach presented here represents a significant advance for EBFM, the application of which is important for sustainable resource management in the future.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark, Charlottenlund Castle, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lindegren
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Möllmann
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: Nils C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Stenseth
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018533:Biomass; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D017753:Ecosystem; D005398:Fisheries / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D020387:Food Chain; D048388:Gadiformes / Q000254:growth & development*; D008386:Marine Biology; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D054712:Salinity
references.citation: Science. 2004 Jun 4;304(5676):1463-6
references.pmid: 15178792
references.citation: Science. 2005 Jun 10;308(5728):1621-3
references.pmid: 15947186
references.citation: Science. 1984 Jun 1;224(4652):985-7
references.pmid: 17731996
references.citation: Nature. 2000 Aug 24;406(6798):882-5
references.pmid: 10972288
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2008 Aug 7;275(1644):1793-801
references.pmid: 18460432
references.citation: Oecologia. 2001 Jun;128(1):1-14
references.pmid: 28547079
references.citation: Science. 2004 Jul 16;305(5682):346-7
references.pmid: 15256658
references.citation: Nature. 1972 Aug 18;238(5364):413-4
references.pmid: 4559589
references.citation: Trends Ecol Evol. 2005 Nov;20(11):579-81
references.pmid: 16701438
references.citation: Science. 2001 Jul 27;293(5530):657-60
references.pmid: 11474103
references.citation: Nature. 2003 Dec 11;426(6967):661-4
references.pmid: 14668864
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Aug 10;101(32):11679-84
references.pmid: 15286282
references.citation: Nature. 2002 Aug 8;418(6898):689-95
references.pmid: 12167876
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jun 19;104(25):10518-23
references.pmid: 17548831