Social-ecological outcomes in recreational fisheries: The interaction of lakeshore development and stocking

Ecological Applications
By: , and 

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Abstract

Many ecosystems continue to experience rapid transformations due to processes like land use change and resource extraction. A systems approach to maintaining natural resources focuses on how interactions and feedbacks among components of complex social‐ecological systems generate social and ecological outcomes. In recreational fisheries, residential shoreline development and fish stocking are two widespread human behaviors that influence fisheries, yet emergent social‐ecological outcomes from these potentially interacting behaviors remain under explored. We applied a social‐ecological systems framework using a simulation model and empirical data to determine whether lakeshore development is likely to promote stocking through its adverse effects on coarse woody habitat and thereby also on survival of juvenile and adult fish. We demonstrate that high lakeshore development is likely to generate dependency of the ecosystem on the social system, in the form of stocking. Further, lakeshore development can interact with social‐ecological processes to create deficits for state‐level governments, which threatens the ability to fund further ecosystem subsidies. Our results highlight the value of a social‐ecological framework for maintaining ecosystem services like recreational fisheries.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Social-ecological outcomes in recreational fisheries: The interaction of lakeshore development and stocking
Series title Ecological Applications
DOI 10.1002/eap.1433
Volume 27
Issue 1
Year Published 2017
Language English
Publisher Ecological Society of America
Contributing office(s) Great Lakes Science Center
Description 10 p.
First page 56
Last page 65
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