Mean and variance of population density and temporal Taylor's law in stochastic stage-structured density-dependent models of exploited fish populations Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. How does fishing affect the mean and variance of population density in the presence of environmental fluctuations? Several recent authors have suggested that an increasing ratio of standard deviation to mean (coefficient of variation, or CV) in population density indicates declining population stability. We investigated the relationship between the mean and variance of population density in stochastic, density-dependent, stage-structured fish population models. Our models included either compensatory or overcompensatory density dependence affecting either fertility or juvenile survival. Environmental stochasticity affected either juvenile survival (when density dependence affected fertility) or fertility (when density dependence affected juvenile survival). The mean and variance of population density were compared as fishing mortality changed. In some cases, the relationship between the natural logarithms of mean and variance is linear under some parameters (life history strategy) of some models (the type of density dependence and the timing of density dependence and stochasticity), supporting Taylors law. In other cases, the relationship can be non-linear, especially when density dependence is overcompensatory, and depends on the stage observed. For example, the variance of adult density may increase with its mean while the variance of juvenile density of the same population may decline, or vice versa. The sequence in which individuals experience stochasticity and density dependence matters because density dependence can attenuate or magnify the fluctuation. In conclusion, the use of the CV as a proxy for population instability is not appropriate, and the CV of population density has to be interpreted carefully for other purposes.

published proceedings

  • THEORETICAL ECOLOGY

author list (cited authors)

  • Fujiwara, M., & Cohen, J. E.

citation count

  • 3

complete list of authors

  • Fujiwara, Masami||Cohen, Joel E

publication date

  • May 2015