Susceptibility in Exploited Marine Fishes and Invertebrates: Deconstructing Myths about Resilience to Extinction

摘要

Marine fishes and invertebrates are becoming increasingly vulnerable to depletion and extinction. Their vulnerability is indicated by widespread severe declines, local and global extinctions, and management failures, as well as by emerging science. Fisheries management has in many cases failed to ac-count for the vulnerability of marine spe-cies due, in part, to underlying misper-ceptions about the resilience of marine species to severe depletion and extinction. These misperceptions arise because marine species are highly fecund, wide-ranging, and fast-growing, as well as able to withstand high levels of exploitation and recover rap-idly from low numbers. In this paper, these misperceptions are explored and deconstructed in the light of the emerging science, which is improving our understanding of susceptibility in the marine environment.