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A context for recruitment correlations: why marine fisheries biologists should still look for them
Author(s) -
TYLER A. V.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
fisheries oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.016
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1365-2419
pISSN - 1054-6006
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2419.1992.tb00027.x
Subject(s) - conceptualization , process (computing) , meaning (existential) , computer science , context (archaeology) , data science , set (abstract data type) , marine fisheries , contrast (vision) , face (sociological concept) , fishery , management science , operations research , artificial intelligence , epistemology , fish <actinopterygii> , sociology , economics , geology , mathematics , biology , paleontology , social science , philosophy , programming language , operating system
In many cases when ecologists want to investigate a process, they often look for the best system on which to conduct the research, “best” meaning that the possibility of discovering mechanisms is optimized or made easier in some way. In fisheries we do it backwards. The species and system are given to us by economics, and we then fly in the face of the difficult circumstances to find mechanisms that are elusive anyway. These difficult circumstances constitute in some sense the first set of statistical problems. Using examples from the Northeast Pacific, I review the characteristics of cohort time series that make some species more tractable; propose a conscious process of conceptualization to assist in the formulation of clear, germane hypotheses; highlight the contrast between modeling in the sense of statistical fitting versus simulation models of processes; explore how the first round of models integrates with the second round of planning for new data collection at sea and in the lab; and, finally, propose how to judge success in terms of an operational approach.