Changes between Version 2 and Version 3 of EwEugDefiningTheSystem


Ignore:
Timestamp:
2010-01-28 14:11:20 (14 years ago)
Author:
varunr
Comment:

--

Legend:

Unmodified
Added
Removed
Modified
  • EwEugDefiningTheSystem

    v2 v3  
    55The groups of a system may be (ecologically or taxonomically) related species, single species, or size/age groups, i.e., they must correspond to what is generally known as ‘functional groups’. Using single species as the basic units has clear advantages, especially as one then can use estimated or published consumption and mortality rates without having to average between species. On the other hand, averaging is straightforward and should lead to unbiased estimates if one has information on all the components of the group. The input parameters of the combined groups should simply be the means of the component parameters, weighted by the relative biomass of the components. Often one does not, however, have all the data needed for weighting the means. In such cases, try to aggregate species that have similar sizes, growth and mortality rates, and which have similar diet compositions. 
    66 
    7 A procedure has been incorporated in !FishBase ([[http://www.fishbase.org/|www.fishbase.org]]) which assembles, for any country, a list of the freshwater and marine fish occurring in different habitat types, and other information useful for Ecopath models (maximum size, growth parameters, diet compositions, etc.) 
     7A procedure has been incorporated in [[http://www.fishbase.org/|www.fishbase.org !FishBase]] which assembles, for any country, a list of the freshwater and marine fish occurring in different habitat types, and other information useful for Ecopath models (maximum size, growth parameters, diet compositions, etc.) 
    88 
    99For tropical applications, grouping of species is nearly always needed: there are simply too many species for a single-species approach to be appropriate for more than a few important populations. It is difficult to provide specific guidelines on how to make the groupings, as this may differ among ecosystems. Generally however, one should considers the whole ecosystem, e.g., for an aquatic model, one or two types of detritus (e.g., one to include mainly marine snow, the other discarded bycatch, if any), phytoplankton, benthic producers, herbivorous and carnivorous zooplankton, meio- and macrobenthos, herbivorous fish, planktivorous fish, predatory fish, etc., and that at least 12 groups are included, including the fishery (any number of fleets/gears), if any. But most important is the personal judgment of what is appropriate for your system.