Ecosystem knowledge should replace coexistence and stability assumptions in ecological network modelling

by Sarah Vollert, Christopher Drovandi, and Matthew Adams

Ecosystem models are often used to aid conservation decision making, to help quantify the risks of management, and assess the probability of conservation success. But these models are frequently built on the assumption that an ecosystem will naturally stabilise towards a coexisting balance of species. This paper argues that this theoretical assumption is inappropriate for conservation planning, because it downplays the risks of extinction. Instead, we demonstrate how ecological field knowledge can replace this assumption without significant loss of information and show that expert knowledge leads to more realistic population predictions.

Using ecological observations as an alternative for constructing ecosystem models.