34
Chapter 2: Biogeographic Partition of the Ocean
fish and have almost everywhere suffered the same fate: widely, their populations have
now collapsed under very moderate fishing intensity and have become so modified in
their age structure that it is no longer possible to compute the parameters of their
pristine populations—such as natural rates of mortality-at-age—that are essential for the
management of population recovery. Fisheries may be considered as producing “new
species” having life history traits sufficiently modified that they are no longer appropriate
to their habitat, to which the characteristics of the pristine population were closely
adapted.
The conclusion is inevitable, and difficult to handle in the context of this book, and
in this concerned age. Some people may consider it futile, and even counterproductive,
to try to describe the characteristics of marine ecosystems as if they remained in their
natural state. Certainly, it is not very politically correct. But the simple fact remains that
it is critical to understand this state because it is the naturally evolved biological response
to the physical characteristics of each region of the oceans. Human intervention in the
biosphere obscures this natural relationship and makes the task of understanding it much
more difficult.
Chapter 2: Biogeographic Partition of the Ocean
fish and have almost everywhere suffered the same fate: widely, their populations have
now collapsed under very moderate fishing intensity and have become so modified in
their age structure that it is no longer possible to compute the parameters of their
pristine populations—such as natural rates of mortality-at-age—that are essential for the
management of population recovery. Fisheries may be considered as producing “new
species” having life history traits sufficiently modified that they are no longer appropriate
to their habitat, to which the characteristics of the pristine population were closely
adapted.
The conclusion is inevitable, and difficult to handle in the context of this book, and
in this concerned age. Some people may consider it futile, and even counterproductive,
to try to describe the characteristics of marine ecosystems as if they remained in their
natural state. Certainly, it is not very politically correct. But the simple fact remains that
it is critical to understand this state because it is the naturally evolved biological response
to the physical characteristics of each region of the oceans. Human intervention in the
biosphere obscures this natural relationship and makes the task of understanding it much
more difficult.