Open AccessGENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ECOSYSTEM MODELING WITH ALTERNATIVE PREFERENCE SPECIFICATIONS
Author(s) -
STRONG AARON,
OLIVER MATTHEW E.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
natural resource modeling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.28
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1939-7445
pISSN - 0890-8575
DOI - 10.1111/nrm.12030
Subject(s) - stocking , incentive , ecosystem , preference , order (exchange) , sensitivity (control systems) , economics , ecology , environmental resource management , economic model , climate change , natural resource economics , microeconomics , biology , fishery , finance , electronic engineering , engineering
This paper reconciles two sets of literature with regard to the interactive ecological and economic impacts of invasive grass species and cattle stocking. We model cattle as optimal foragers, satiation foragers, and proportional foragers in order to understand the impact that each assumption imposes on predicted economic and ecological outcomes. Through this model sensitivity (as opposed to parameter sensitivity) analysis, we are able to identify three main drivers of plant invasions: exogenous forces such as climate change or nitrogen deposition, poor land management decisions, and a misalignment of incentives between cattle and ranchers even when ranchers behave optimally.