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Empiricism and Modeling for Marine Fisheries: Advancing an Interdisciplinary Science

  • 20th Anniversary Paper
  • Published:
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Abstract

Marine fisheries science is a broad field that is fundamentally concerned with sustainability across ecological, economic, and social dimensions. Ensuring the delivery of food, security, equity, and well-being while sustaining ecosystems in the face of rapid change is, by far, the main challenge facing marine fisheries. A tighter integration of modeling and empiricism is needed to confront this challenge. In particular, improved incorporation of empirically grounded and realistic representation of human behaviors into models will greatly enhance our ability to predict likely outcomes under alternative adaptive strategies. Challenges to this integration certainly exist, but many of these can be overcome via improved professional training that reduces cultural rifts between empiricists and modelers and between natural and social sciences, ideally ending the presumption that there is a divide between empiricism and modeling.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Steve Carpenter and Monica Turner for inviting us to join the special feature. Tim Essington was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1154648AM001. Tim McClanahan was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation during this study period.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Seattle, Washington, 98195, USA

    Timothy E. Essington

  2. College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331, USA

    Lorenzo Ciannelli

  3. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 97331, USA

    Selina S. Heppell

  4. Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Phillip S. Levin

  5. Wildlife Conservation Society, Marine Programs, Bronx, New York, 10460, USA

    Timothy R. McClanahan

  6. Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Monterey, California, USA

    Fiorenza Micheli

  7. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Éva E. Plagányi

  8. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Ingrid E. van Putten

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  1. Timothy E. Essington
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  2. Lorenzo Ciannelli
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  4. Phillip S. Levin
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  5. Timothy R. McClanahan
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Correspondence to Timothy E. Essington.

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Essington, T.E., Ciannelli, L., Heppell, S.S. et al. Empiricism and Modeling for Marine Fisheries: Advancing an Interdisciplinary Science. Ecosystems 20, 237–244 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-016-0073-0

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