some of the most influential scientists working on the development of fisheries
assessment methods were responsible for theoretical developments that proved
fundamental in understanding life histories (Beverton & Holt,1957, 1959).
While fisheries scientists have consistently been aware of links between
population biology and the ecosystem, the politics and practicalities of manage-
ment have led to the development of management systems that were domi-
nated by the assessment of single populations. This approach was accepted by
most management agencies from the 1960s to the present, but two events in
recent years have provided a strong driver for moving toward management
systems that also focus on communities and ecosystems. First, there has been
near universal commitment within international fora that fisheries must be
managed in an ecosystem context to take account of conservation concerns
(Sinclair & Valdimarsson, 2003 ). Second, there have been major advances in the
development of food-web theory that may have management applications, and
in the development of connected theory that helps to formalize many of the
observed relationships between individual, population and community pro-
cesses (Brown & Gillooly,2003; Cohenet al., 2003; Brownet al., this volume;
Cohen, this volume). The changing drivers for management, and these new
developments in ecology, suggest that theoretical development should reinvigo-
rate the development of new management and assessment methods.Acknowledgements
We thank Nick Goodwin for providing the materials to prepare Fig.14.1and
Julia Blanchard and Nick Dulvy for providing data to prepare Fig.14.3.References
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