Understanding trophic interactions between cetaceans and fisheries: testing modeling approaches

• Gerber, Leah

Abstract
The goal of my NCEAS sabbatical research is to bridge the gap between marine conservation science and management by providing a transparent and quantitative validation of marine ecosystem models (MEMs). While some attention has been given to predicting the impacts of fishing and model complexity with marine ecosystem models, the systematic understanding of the effects of model structure on model performance is at an early stage. I will characterize the types of MEMs being employed by management agencies that use ecosystem based management. In evaluating the models, I will examine the efficacy of these models in their ability to 1) capture true ecosystem dynamics and 2) apply model results to real-world management. To do this I will create virtual marine ecosystems (VME), complete with ocean currents, exogenous forcings, nutrient cycling, biofeedback, plankton population dynamics and secondary consumers including fish, whales and a fishing fleet. VMEs will provide a known baseline with which to compare predictions from commonly used, but much less detailed MEMs. I will then use data extracted from the VMEs to parameterize a suite of MEMs and quantify the relative accuracy of these models in relevant management scenarios. Ultimately I hope that this work will provide guidance about the use of MEMs models for different management agencies.