Can economic forces cause ecological chaos? The case of the Northern California dungeness crab fishery [Cancer magister]

Cyclical dynamics have been observed in catch records of Dungeness crab, Cancer magister , from the northern Californian fishery. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain these cycles, including external forces such as wind stress, upwellings, sunspot activity, and water temperature, and int...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oikos 1991-10, Vol.62 (1), p.106-109
Main Author: Berryman, A.A. (Washington State Univ. (USA). Dept. of Natural Resource Sciences)
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Applied ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Biomass
Cancer magister
CANGREJO DE MAR
CATCH COMPOSITION
Chaos theory
COMPOSICION DE LA CAPTURA
COMPOSITION DE LA CAPTURE
CRABE
CRABS
DENSIDAD DE LA POBLACION
DENSITE DE POPULATION
ECOLOGIA
Ecological economics
Ecological modeling
ECOLOGIE
ECOLOGY
Exploitation and management of natural biological resources (hunting, fishing and exploited populations survey, etc.)
Fishery economics
Forum
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Marine
Negative feedback
POPULATION DENSITY
Population dynamics
Population growth
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Cyclical dynamics have been observed in catch records of Dungeness crab, Cancer magister , from the northern Californian fishery. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain these cycles, including external forces such as wind stress, upwellings, sunspot activity, and water temperature, and internal feedback responses such as density-dependent egg and larval predation and cannibalism of young. However, an alternative hypothesis is that the cycles were induced by the interaction of the crab population with the economics of the fishery. This hypothesis arose from a preliminary inductive or diagnostic examination of the crab harvest trajectory.
ISSN:0030-1299
1600-0706
DOI:10.2307/3545457