Research Product

Critical habitats for fish and wildlife often are small patches in landscapes, e.g., aquatic vegetation beds, reefs, isolated ponds and wetlands, remnant old growth forests, etc., yet the same animal populations that depend on these patches for reproduction or survival can be extensive, ranging over large regions, even continents or major ocean basins. Whereas the ecological production functions that support these populations can be measured only at fine geographic scales and over brief periods of time, the ecosystem services (benefits that ecosystems convey to humans by supporting food production, water and air purification, recreational, aesthetic and cultural amenities, etc.) are delivered over extensive scales of space and time. These scale mismatches are particularly important for quantifying the economic values of ecosystem services. Examples can be seen in fish, shellfish, game, and bird populations. We present concepts and case studies linking production functions (contributions to recruitment), of critical habitats to commercial and recreational fishery values by combining site-specific research data with spatial analysis and population models. We present examples illustrating various spatial scales of analysis, with indicators of economic value, for salmon fisheries in the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW), and commercial crab and shrimp fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico