inst/ms/abstract.md

In seananderson/metafolio: Metapopulation Simulations for Conserving Salmon Through Portfolio Optimization

Other title ideas:

• Prioritizing metapopulation conservation through the lens of portfolio theory

• Portfolio optimization reveals...

• Portfolio theory reveals conservation strategies that...

• Intelligent tinkering with ecological portfolios: patterns of environmental response diversity drive salmon conservation priorities

• Keeping every cog and wheel...

Ecology Letters

• letters: 5000 words, 6 figures or tables
• ideas and perspectives: 7500 words, 10 figures (needs 300 word proposal)

Ecology Letters is a forum for the very rapid publication of the most novel research in ecology, research that is not yet in the public domain. Manuscripts relating to the ecology of all taxa, in any biome and geographic area will be considered, and priority will be given to those papers exploring or testing clearly stated hypotheses. The journal publishes concise papers that merit urgent publication by virtue of their originality, general interest and their contribution to new developments in ecology. We discourage purely descriptive papers and those merely confirming or extending results of previous work.

Ecological Applications

• 60 pages including everything

Ecological Applications is concerned broadly with the applications of ecological science to environmental problems. It publishes papers that develop scientific principles to support environmental decision-making, as well as papers that discuss the application of ecological concepts to environmental issues, policy, and management. Papers may report on experimental tests, actual applications, scientific decision support techniques, economic analyses, social implications of environmental issues, or other relevant topics. Statistical or experimental methods papers that support research and applications are welcome. Papers submitted to Ecological Applications should be accessible to both scholars and practitioners.

Long and rambling abstract that's a bit old now

1. Managing risk is fundamental to the conservation of an endangered species. When an endangered species exists as a metapopulation, we can manage risk at two levels: at the population level or at the metapopulation level. Whereas risk is typically managed at the population level, a portfolio approach to managing risk might consider how conservation affects the "weight" of each population in a metapopulation "portfolio".

2. Here, we ask how a portfolio approach to managing risk can inform the spatial conservation of metapopulations in a changing world. To answer this, we develop a salmon metapopulation simulation in which population-specific productivity is driven by spatially-distributed environmental tolerance and patterns of short- and long-term environmental change. We then implement different spatial conservation "rules of thumb" that control the population-specific carrying capacities and evaluate the salmon portfolios along risk and return axes, similarly to how financial portfolios are assessed.

3. Our results show, first, that maintaining populations with a variety of environmental tolerances gives the best chance at an efficient ecological portfolio --- minimizing metapopulation variance while maximizing metapopulation growth rate. This finding emphasizes the risk of allowing large spatial blocks of habitat destruction, say through the development of dams. Second, we show that focusing on well-performing stocks now at the detriment of others is at best equivalent to a risky but efficient portfolio and is more likely a risky and inefficient portfolio --- it neither minimizes metapopulation variance nor maximizes growth rate compared to other strategies. Third, we show that maintaining more populations reduces metapopulation risk for the same spatial conservation strategy. Given a lack of knowledge of how populations respond to the environment, the most risk-averse approach is to conserve as many populations as possible.

4. Our findings highlight three key points: (1) the conservation priority of maintaining biocomplexity and therefore environmental response diversity, (2) the research priority of identifying differences in environmental tolerance given predicted environmental changes, and (3) the utility of considering risk for groups of fish stocks --- especially given environmental, biological, and implementation uncertainty --- through the lens of portfolio theory.

seananderson/metafolio documentation built on Feb. 13, 2024, 5:47 a.m.