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Abstract
Maintaining Populations as Functioning
Elements of Their Ecosystem: The Role of Management Units.
Conservation is not limited to managing endangered species. Maintaining
healthy functioning ecosystems often requires active management of many
abundant and often continuously distributed species. Because human impact
is always uneven across a species' range, successful management requires
understanding population structure. Understanding structure can allow
management to prevent localized over-exploitation that would result in
range fragmentation or contraction. Genetic data can be used as a tool
to estimate dispersal and the locations of restrictions in gene flow.
Unfortunately, standard hypothesis testing approaches often conclude that
there is no evidence for population structure. Data from the scientific
whaling of North Pacific minke whales provides an example of the hazards
of interpreting genetic data. The development of estimation techniques
is demonstrated and reveals how small dispersal rates that are demographically
trivial with respect to managing harvest can be difficult to detect using
standard hypothesis testing. A technique to estimate the power to detect
structure is again shown using the minke whale example.
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Biography
Barbara Taylor works for the National
Marine Fisheries Service, is a scientific advisor to the Marine Mammal
Commission, coordinates the documentation for the IUCN Red List for cetaceans
and is a delegate to the International Whaling Commission. Thus, she works
at the interface between science and the implementation of policy at both
the domestic and international level. Her main interests lie in developing
analytical tools that allow the results of data analysis to be used directly
in decision-making. She has brought her perspectives on management and
population dynamics to bear on the problem of defining units appropriate
to manage populations successfully as defined by policy.
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Relevant Publications
Taylor, B. L., P. R. Wade, D.
P. DeMaster, and J. Barlow. 2000. Incorporating uncertainty into management
models for marine mammals. Conservation Biology 14:1243-1252.
Taylor, B.L., S. J. Chivers, S. Sexton and A. E. Dizon. 2000. Estimating
dispersal rates using mitochondrial DNA data and incorporating uncertainty.
Conservation Biology 14:1287-1297.
Taylor, B. L. and A. E. Dizon. 1999. First policy then science: Why a
management unit based solely on genetic criteria canŐt work. Molecular
Ecology 8:S11-S16.
Taylor, B. L. and L. Rojas-Bracho. 1999. Examining the risk of inbreeding
depression in a naturally rare cetacean, the vaquita (Phocoena sinus).
Marine Mammal Science 15:1004-1028.
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