ABSTRACT
Ecological theory and the development of general models will have an impact on fishery population dynamics models through a realization of a more holistic view, that the dynamic behavior of components is determined largely by the structure of the ecosystem. Fishery models, which fall in the upper right hand box, feed directly into the trophic structure box, which encompasses the ecological models being considered here. Fishery analysis has concentrated on the response of the target species to exploitation, but in Schaefer's seminal paper he presented an equation from the ecological literature for the growth rate of fishing effort in response to changes in the fish population in an unregulated fishery. Fishery biology has traditionally been more ecosystem oriented than most other areas of resource management, perhaps because of the emphasis in commercial fisheries on biomass, and hence on the production process. Ecological theory has always played an important role in the development of fishery biology.
