The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. Loren McClenachan to work with Dr. Nicholas K. Dulvy at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Analyses of historical data for marine vertebrates around the world have found population declines for many species exceeding 90%. Recent interest in the conservation of these charismatic megafauna has resulted in international, regional, and national level legislation to protect remnant populations. However, policy frameworks designed for population recovery typically lack clearly defined recovery targets. Therefore, there is an emerging need to determine the relationship between recovery targets for endangered and protected species and past population sizes, particularly when carrying capacities of historically exploited species have changed due to fishing of prey species or habitat alteration. The objective of this research is to improve the process of recovery planning for large marine vertebrates through analysis of historical population and ecological baselines, limits to carrying capacity, and the goals of protective legislation. Specifically, the goals of this project are to (1) estimate past biomass densities of predators and their prey, (2) determine modern carrying capacity for these large marine vertebrates and the potential to modify it by changing exploitation pressure on prey species, and (3) analyze the relationship between historical baselines and recovery targets in the context of management objectives in order to develop options for incorporating historical data into recovery plans.
Establishing a relationship between past and target population sizes is important from both an ecological and management perspective. This research provides ecosystem-based reconstructions of past abundances for a number of species of large marine vertebrates, as well as a broader framework for incorporating historical data into management and conservation. The results will contribute to a broad understanding of past, present and future productivity of marine ecosystems under varying degrees of human impact and improve the process of setting recovery targets for historically exploited species. Specifically, it will provide guidance for understanding the types of historical data that can be included in analysis of population trends, how these long-term data fit into existing management goals, and how long-term ecological changes and modern fisheries interactions affect recovery potential. Historical population abundances are not necessarily appropriate restoration targets, but they are essential to (i) avoid the shifting baseline syndrome by setting recovery targets too low, (ii) better understand the degree to which animal biomass and higher order productivity has changed over time and (iii) establish ecosystem-based approaches for recovering populations of protected marine vertebrates.
