 Maximum sustainable yield and species extinction in ecosystemsTarzan Legović, Jasminka Klanjšček and Sunčana Geček Ecological Modelling, 2010, vol. 221, issue 12, 1569-1574 Abstract: With intent to help fisherman catch the most fish in the long run and to protect fish populations from extinction, major world fisheries regulation agencies have passed recommendations to implement sustainability in fisheries through the application of “maximum sustainable yield” (MSY). We show that application of MSY policy will lead to extinction of a large number of fish species in most ecosystems. More precisely, we show: approaching MSY in ecosystems means that most likely fish species will be driven to extinction in every fishery that includes exploitation of at least one trophic level which is directly or indirectly used as food for a higher trophic level. Because such single and multispecies fisheries make up a great majority of existing fisheries, attempts to reach MSY should be discouraged instead of being legally prescribed as a goal. Based on our result, we offer a simple prescription for managing a fishery in agreement with the Convention on Biological Diversity. Keywords: Maximum sustainable yield; Single species fisheries; Multispecies fisheries; Sustainability; Species extinction; Prey–predator; Food chain; Cycle of matter; Ecosystem (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:221:y:2010:i:12:p:1569-1574 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.03.024 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier |
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