1,551 research outputs found
Sustaining productivity of tropical red snappers using new monitoring and reference points
OBJECTIVES:
1. Analyse current monitoring and logbook data sets, as well as survey and other information,to establish whether these data provide sufficient power to develop critical indicators of fishery performance.
2. Provide a risk analysis that examines the use of age structure and catch rate information for development of critical indicators, and response rules for those criteria, in the absence of other fishery information.
3. Develop a monitoring program that uses commercial vessels from the fishery to provide independent data
Characterisation of the inshore fish assemblages of the Pilbara and Kimberley coasts
All of the objectives of this project have been met by documenting the following: the overall catch of the key commercial, recreational and charter boat fish species; the species composition and relative abundance of the inshore demersal finfish resource from the shoreline outward to a depth of 30 m along the inner continental shelf in north-western Australia; and the nursery areas of the major commercial and recreational fish species in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions
Punctuated equilibria and 1/f noise in a biological coevolution model with individual-based dynamics
We present a study by linear stability analysis and large-scale Monte Carlo
simulations of a simple model of biological coevolution. Selection is provided
through a reproduction probability that contains quenched, random interspecies
interactions, while genetic variation is provided through a low mutation rate.
Both selection and mutation act on individual organisms. Consistent with some
current theories of macroevolutionary dynamics, the model displays
intermittent, statistically self-similar behavior with punctuated equilibria.
The probability density for the lifetimes of ecological communities is well
approximated by a power law with exponent near -2, and the corresponding power
spectral densities show 1/f noise (flicker noise) over several decades. The
long-lived communities (quasi-steady states) consist of a relatively small
number of mutualistically interacting species, and they are surrounded by a
``protection zone'' of closely related genotypes that have a very low
probability of invading the resident community. The extent of the protection
zone affects the stability of the community in a way analogous to the height of
the free-energy barrier surrounding a metastable state in a physical system.
Measures of biological diversity are on average stationary with no discernible
trends, even over our very long simulation runs of approximately 3.4x10^7
generations.Comment: 20 pages RevTex. Minor revisions consistent with published versio
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