IGN 20-4 - Linking ecology and the economy with models and scenarios to estimate shellfish food production potential

Thursday, August 10, 2017
C123, Oregon Convention Center
Eric J. Chapman, Marine Science Center, University of New England, Biddeford, ME, Carrie J. Byron, Marine Science Department, University of New England, Biddeford, ME, Di Jin, Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA and Tracey M. Dalton, Department of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
Coastal ecosystems provide a variety of ecosystem services for humans. As such, ecosystems are increasingly viewed as social-ecological systems (SES); in this approach, human livelihood is often explicitly and tightly coupled to the structure and function of ecosystems. In this Ignite talk, we will provide a brief overview of our efforts to consider the ecological and economic potential for shellfish production for human consumption. Our approach involved modeling ecosystem energy flow, generating shellfish production scenarios, and modeling the economic potential of each shellfish production scenario. We will present results of these scenarios and discuss future research directions.