Ten Heuristics for Interdisciplinary Modeling Projects

Complex environmental and ecological problems require collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts. A common approach to integrating disciplinary perspectives on these problems is to develop simulation models in which the linkages between system components are explicitly represented. There is, however, little guidance in the literature on how such models should be developed through collaborative teamwork. In this paper, we offer a set of heuristics (rules of thumb) that address a range of challenges associated with this enterprise, including the selection of team members, negotiating a consensus view of the research problem, prototyping and refining models, the role of sensitivity analysis, and the importance of team communication. These heuristics arose from a comparison of our experiences with several interdisciplinary modeling projects. We use one such experience—a project in which natural scientists, social scientists, and local residents came together to investigate the sustainability of small indigenous communities in the Arctic—to illustrate the heuristics. Received 27 April 2001; accepted 12 November 2001.     

Advancing Science for Water Resources Management

Despite the major advances in science to underpin water resources and river management that have taken place over the past two decades, a need remains to establish a unifying framework that will lead to new, appropriate tools for water resources management. In Europe, this need has been highlighted by the promotion of the Water Framework Directive. From a scientific perspective, key questions focus on the ecological significance of flow variability over a range of timescales and the linkage between flow variability, habitat variability and biological population responses, and the biological interactions among these populations. Creation of scientifically sound tools requires development of knowledge at the level of first principles to realize sustainable developments within the context of adaptive management. Similitude analyses provide a mechanism for upscaling from fine ‘research’ scales to the coarser scales of water resource managers. Lack of appropriate data is the major obstacle to the development of these tools, especially those concerned with large rivers.     

Marine Invertebrate Conservation: Evaluation of Fisheries Over-exploitation Concerns

The nature of overfishing of marine invertebrates is complex,ranging from the perception of overfishing because of competitionby user groups for a common property resource to extensive overfishingto near extinction because of poaching by either licensed orunlicensed fishers. As a group, marine invertebrates seem particularlyresistant to overfishing, primarily because their relative immobilityand scattered concentrations means refuge populations oftenexist. However, this distribution pattern also means a fisheryis scattered over an often large geographical area with relativelysmall, frequent landings at any location. A minimum legal sizeregulation, enforceable anywhere before consumption, is theprimary regulation applied by managers for many species to ensureagainst overfishing. Overfishing concerns arise primarily forthose species where price is sufficiently high to encourageillegal fishing or where harvest by fishers is not easily monitoredor controlled because of the nature of the fishing activityor because only part of the animal (e.g., the flesh) is harvested.Instances of overfishing by cause are discussed, and examplesare presented to demonstrate how managers are dealing with orhave dealt with different situations.     

Marine Ecosystem Science on an Intertwined Planet

Ecosystems - Marine ecosystem science has developed since the 1940s, when humans obtained the ability to spend substantial time underneath the surface of the ocean. Since then, and drawing on...     

Rio Plus Ten: The Evolution of International Marine Fisheries Governance

The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held at Rio de Janeiro was a seminal event that addressed the interplay of economic development and human use of natural resources with the need for protection of the natural environment. The general principles embodied in the Rio Declaration and the provisions included in the comprehensive Agenda 21 expressed the expectations of the international community and set the stage for national and international policy and legal developments in a host of different areas, including the governance of the ocean's living resources. Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 focused on the world's oceans and seas and crystallized growing world community concern with problems such as unregulated fishing, fishing vessel reflagging, overcapitalization of the fishing industry, inadequate fisheries enforcement, and insufficient cooperation among states. Further, the documentation of UNCED evidenced interest in new governance frameworks and concepts such as ecosystem-based management and precaution. In retrospect, it is clear that the ideas discussed at Rio have been important and have been implemented by a variety of governments and international organizations as they exercise their responsibilities for fisheries management. This article examines the principles and approaches suggested by UNCED as they relate to world fisheries and considers how they have been reflected in global fishery agreements such as the FAO Compliance Agreement and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, in the work of international fishery bodies such as the FAO Committee on Fisheries, and in the efforts of a number of regional fishery commissions. It also addresses the significance and ramifications of changes suggested by Agenda 21 for the future conduct and management of world marine fisheries.     

Climate Change,Vector-borne Disease and Interdisciplinary Research: Social Science Perspectives on an Environment and Health Controversy

Over the last two decades, the science of climate change’s theoretical impacts on vector-borne disease has generated controversy related to its methodological validity and relevance to disease control policy. Critical social science analysis, drawing on science and technology studies and the sociology of social movements, demonstrates consistency between this controversy and the theory that climate change is serving as a collective action frame for some health researchers. Within this frame, vector-borne disease data are interpreted as a symptom of climate change, with the need for further interdisiplinary research put forth as the logical and necessary next step. Reaction to this tendency on the part of a handful of vector-borne disease specialists exhibits characteristics of academic boundary work aimed at preserving the integrity of existing disciplinary boundaries. Possible reasons for this conflict include the leadership role for health professionals and disciplines in the envisioned interdiscipline, and disagreements over the appropriate scale of interventions to control vector-borne diseases. Analysis of the competing frames in this controversy also allows identification of excluded voices and themes, such as international political economic explanations for the health problems in question. A logical conclusion of this analysis, therefore, is the need for critical reflection on environment and health research and policy to achieve integration with considerations of global health equity.     

Fish Rejections in the Marine Aquarium Trade: An Initial Case Study Raises Concern for Village-Based Fisheries

A major difficulty in managing wildlife trade is the reliance on trade data (rather than capture data) to monitor exploitation of wild populations. Collected organisms that die or are rejected before a point of sale often go unreported. For the global marine aquarium trade, identifying the loss of collected fish from rejection, prior to export, is a first step in assessing true collection levels. This study takes a detailed look at fish rejections by buyers before export using the Papua New Guinea marine aquarium fishery as a case study. Utilizing collection invoices detailing the species and quantity of fish (Actinopteri and Elasmobranchii) accepted or rejected by the exporting company it was determined that, over a six month period, 24.2% of the total fish catch reported (n = 13,886) was rejected. Of the ten most collected fish families, rejection frequency was highest for the Apogonidae (54.2%), Chaetodontidae (26.3%), and Acanthuridae (18.2%) and lowest for Labridae (6.6%) and Hemiscylliidae (0.7%). The most frequently cited reasons for rejection were fin damage (45.6% of cases), undersized fish (21.8%), and fish deemed too thin (11.1%). Despite fishers receiving feedback on invoices explaining rejections, there was no improvement in rejection frequencies over time (r = -0.33, P = 0.15) with weekly rejection frequencies being highly inconsistent (range: 2.8% to 79.4%; s = 16.3%). These findings suggest that export/import statistics can greatly underestimate collection for the marine aquarium trade as additional factors such as fisher discards, escapees, post-collection mortalities, and unregulated domestic trade would further contribute to this disparity.     

An Integrated Framework Advancing Membrane Protein Modeling and Design

Membrane proteins are critical functional molecules in the human body, constituting more than 30% of open reading frames in the human genome. Unfortunately, a myriad of difficulties in overexpression and reconstitution into membrane mimetics severely limit our ability to determine their structures. Computational tools are therefore instrumental to membrane protein structure prediction, consequently increasing our understanding of membrane protein function and their role in disease. Here, we describe a general framework facilitating membrane protein modeling and design that combines the scientific principles for membrane protein modeling with the flexible software architecture of Rosetta3. This new framework, called RosettaMP, provides a general membrane representation that interfaces with scoring, conformational sampling, and mutation routines that can be easily combined to create new protocols. To demonstrate the capabilities of this implementation, we developed four proof-of-concept applications for (1) prediction of free energy changes upon mutation; (2) high-resolution structural refinement; (3) protein-protein docking; and (4) assembly of symmetric protein complexes, all in the membrane environment. Preliminary data show that these algorithms can produce meaningful scores and structures. The data also suggest needed improvements to both sampling routines and score functions. Importantly, the applications collectively demonstrate the potential of combining the flexible nature of RosettaMP with the power of Rosetta algorithms to facilitate membrane protein modeling and design.     

Fisheries for small pelagic species: an empirical approach to management targets

Summary Long-term management targets based on MSY, F_max or F_0.1 are inappropriate for small pelagic fish because of the possibility of stock collapse owing to a stock-recruit relationship at low biomasses. Better reference points such as F_med and F_high that take account of stock and recruit data cannot be used in developing fishery situations because they are too demanding of data. A simple model was fitted to medium-term (about 10 year) periods in exploited small pelagic fisheries, relating change in stock biomass to exploitation rate. Data from 28 stocks and 11 species were used. The fitted model was used to estimate likelihood of stock decrease at different exploitation rates. The pelagic stocks included in the model appeared to be in equilibrium for an exploitation rate F/Z=0.4, which may be used as a guideline for the appropriate exploitation of pelagic stocks.     

Lessons Learned from Reconstructing Interactions Between Local Ecological Knowledge, Fisheries Science, and Fisheries Management in the Commercial Fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Questions centered on the development of local and traditional ecological knowledge and the relationship of that knowledge to the development of conservation and management practices have recently attracted critical attention. We examine these questions with respect to the dynamic commercial fisheries of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The knowledge of fish harvesters coevolves with fishing practices and is embedded in a dynamic socioecological network that extends into and beyond the fisher, fishery households, and communities to include management, technologies, markets, and marine ecological conditions. Changes in these networks have moved knowledge and practices related to fishing in directions defined by policy, science, economic rationality, and new ecological realities. We characterize this movement as a shift along a continuum from local ecological knowledge (LEK) towards globalized harvesting knowledge (GHK) as harvesters become increasingly disconnected from socioecological relationships associated with traditional species and stocks. We conclude with a discussion of how LEK/GHK have interacted over time and space with other knowledge systems (particularly science) to influence management, and suggest that contingent, empirical evaluations of these interactions will provide a fruitful avenue for future interdisciplinary research.

Modeling the Increase and Control of Caulerpa taxifolia, an Invasive Marine Macroalga

Population modeling based on species’ demography makes it possible to predict the pace of an invasion and evaluate the likelihood of success of different control strategies. We modeled the initial (density-independent) rate of increase of Caulerpa taxifolia (Vahl) C. Agardh (aquarium strain), a green alga that has markedly altered marine communities where it has invaded in the Mediterranean Sea. Parameter values for patch growth (from stolon extension) and reproduction (by asexual fragmentation and reattachment) were gleaned from published studies. Only the most conservative model, invoking field growth rates and low levels of fragment reattachment (2.5 m⁻² of existing patch each summer), closely matched observed increases (4–14 × annually). The most effective times for control (greatest reduction in rate of increase) were removal of established patches before summer and removal of fragments after summer. These times correspond to just before maximum growth and just after maximum reproduction, respectively. Only a combined strategy, incorporating 99% removal of all fragments and annual removal of 99% of established patches, was predicted to eliminate C. taxifolia entirely (λ < 1). This level of effort is only likely to be possible during the first few years of an invasion, arguing strongly for careful monitoring and rapid response to potential high-impact invaders.     

Fisheries in the Southern Ocean: an ecosystem approach

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is bound by its Article II, 3 to follow an ecosystem approach to management. This approach has been extended to the application of a precautionary approach in the late 1980s. In our review, we deal primarily with the science-related aspects of CCAMLR and its development towards an ecosystem approach to the management of the living resources of the Southern Ocean. To assist the Commission in meeting its objectives, as set out in Article II, 3, the Scientific Committee established the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Programme to detect possible effects of krill fishing on the performance of top-level predators, such as albatrosses, penguins, petrels and fur seals. Fisheries in the Southern Ocean followed the fate of other fisheries worldwide in which target species were depleted to low level one after the other. Currently, two types of fisheries are open: the longline fisheries on Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) and Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) and the trawl fisheries on mackerel icefish (Champsocephalus gunnari). Both fisheries are managed in a single-species context, however, with conservation measures in place to protect by-catch species, such as rattails (Macrouridae) and skates and rays (Rajidae). Two major problems still exist in fisheries in the Southern Ocean: the by-catch of birds in longline fisheries primarily in the Indian Ocean and the high level of IUU fishing again in the Indian Ocean. Both, the by-catch of birds and high IUU catches undermine the credibility of CCAMLR to safeguard the marine living resources in the Southern Ocean.     

Doing Science + Culture: How Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies are Changing the Way We Look at Science and Medicine

Doing Science. Culture: How Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies are Changing the Way We Look at Science and Medicine. Roddy Reid and Sharon Traweek. eds. New York/London: Routledge, 2000. viii. 339 pp.     

How to Use the Science of Snow to Engage Middle School Students in an Interdisciplinary Experience

In this interdisciplinary and field-based activity, grade 5 to 9 students engage in a comprehensive scientific study of snow. Through a series of in-class and out-of-class structured interdisciplinary and team-teaching lesson progressions, students will collect data to be able to analyze and apply knowledge about weather, the physical properties of snow, and the structure of matter that will increase understanding about the nature of science.     

Harvest Refugia in Marine Invertebrate Fisheries: Models and Applications to the Red Sea Urchin, Strongylocentrotus franciscanus

Benthic marine invertebrates with planktonic larvae may exhibitAllee effects in reproduction or recruitment. Hydrodynamic considerationsand experimental evidence suggest that species broadcastinggametes suffer greatly reduced fertilization efficiencies asdensities decline. There is also evidence for some species,including the red sea urchin, that post-dispersal recruitmentsuccess declines at low densities of adults, if adults provideshelter from predators or other sources of mortality. Speciesdisplaying strong Allee effects may be susceptible to catastrophicpopulation collapses with slight increases in mortality dueto harvesting or natural causes. A simple two patch logisticmodel suggests that the establishment of a harvest refuge isnecessary to prevent collapses and maintain sustainable catchesat high levels of harvesting effort. A more detailed, age structuredmodel based on the biology of the red sea urchin, Strongylocentrotusfranciscanus produces similar results. Effects of harvestingstrategies are sensitive to Allee effects caused by both fertilizationefficiency and the disruption of adult spine canopies. Theoreticalrequirements for the size and spacing of marine reserves dependsupon the dispersal abilities of the target species. Multiplereserves, spaced more closely than the average larval dispersaldistance, appear to be an effective and conservative strategyfor maintaining healthy populations and sustainable levels ofharvest.