Premium
Marine reserve effects on fishery profits: a comment on White et al. (2008)
Author(s) -
Hart Deborah R.,
Sissenwine Michael P.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01272.x
Subject(s) - fishery , marine reserve , white (mutation) , yield (engineering) , fisheries management , fish stock , value (mathematics) , fish <actinopterygii> , economics , ecology , fishing , biology , statistics , mathematics , biochemistry , materials science , metallurgy , gene
A recent study (White et al. 2008) claimed that fishery profits will often be higher with management that employs no‐take marine reserves than conventional fisheries management alone. However, this conclusion was based on the erroneous assumption that all landed fish have equal value regardless of size, and questionable assumptions regarding density‐dependence. Examination of an age‐structured version of the White et al. (2008) model demonstrates that their results are not robust to these assumptions. Models with more realistic assumptions generally do not indicate increased fishery yield or profits from marine reserves except for overfished stocks.