Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

As sea otters return to the West Coast of Vancouver Island, they make human enemies by eating hordes of shellfish, which are mainstays of coastal communities. But otters also boost tourism and trigger 'trophic cascades' when the decimation of shellfish enables the recovery of shellfish 'prey'-productive, habitat-forming kelp forests-and many other species dependent on kelp. What is appropriate human intervention? Should coastal communities hunt otters to protect the valuable shellfish industry? Should they invest heavily in the expansion of other industries, such as marine mammal tourism? To answer these questions, we must understand the full suite of benefits and costs. Globally, countless communities and nations struggle with the same decision-making quandaries: countless possible policies govern many human impacts on myriad ecosystem components, affecting diverse competing values. Such quandaries call for an integrated understanding of ecological dynamics, human impacts, and the benefits that people derive from interactions with ecosystems (ecosystem services). In this project, professors, students, and postdoctoral fellows will collaborate closely with management boards and government agencies to (i) assess the many ecological changes associated with otters and kelp forests, including 'nutrient subsidies' from kelp forests to adjacent and distant ecosystems; (ii) represent these changes in a spatial model that depicts the effects of various human interventions on ecosystems; and (iii) evaluate the monetary and non-monetary values associated with changes in ecosystem services like the provision of various subsistence, recreational, and commercial fisheries. Our project will enhance human well-being, environmental health, and sustainability by enabling management and policies that better account for both direct and indirect effects of sea otters and kelp, and for the full set of values affected. By uniting research in the natural and social sciences with policymaking, our project will serve as a model for sustainable environmental decision-making in Canada and elsewhere.