Cost-benefit analysis of ecosystem modeling to support fisheries management.

Mathematical and statistical models underlie many of the world's most important fisheries management decisions. Since the 19th century, difficulty calibrating and fitting such models has been used to justify the selection of simple, stationary, single-species models to aid tactical fisheries management decisions. Whereas these justifications are reasonable, it is imperative that we quantify the value of different levels of model complexity for supporting fisheries management, especially given a changing climate, where old methodologies may no longer perform as well as in the past.

Evolution Transforms Pushed Waves into Pulled Waves.

Understanding the dynamics of biological invasions is crucial for managing numerous phenomena, from invasive species to tumors. While the Allee effect (where individuals in low-density populations suffer lowered fitness) is known to influence both the ecological and the evolutionary dynamics of an invasion, the possibility that an invader's susceptibility to the Allee effect might itself evolve has received little attention. Since invasion fronts are regions of perpetually low population density, selection should be expected to favor vanguard invaders that are resistant to Allee effects.

Anywhere but here: local conditions motivate dispersal in .

Dispersal is fundamental to population dynamics. However, it is increasingly apparent that, despite most models treating dispersal as a constant, many organisms make dispersal decisions based upon information gathered from the environment. Ideally, organisms would make fully informed decisions, with knowledge of both intra-patch conditions (conditions in their current location) and extra-patch conditions (conditions in alternative locations).