Abstract
The Beverton--Holt recruitment model can be derived from arguments about evolution of life history traits related to foraging and predation risk, along with spatially localized and temporarily competitive relationships in the habitats where juvenile fish forage and face predation risk while foraging. This derivation explicitly represents two key biotic factors, food supply (I) and predator abundance (R), which appear as a risk ratio (R/I) that facilitates modelling of changes in trophic circumstances and analysis of historical data. The same general recruitment relationship is expected whether the juvenile life history is simple or involves a complex sequence of stanzas; in the complex case, the Beverton--Holt parameters represent weighted averages or integrals of risk ratios over the stanzas. The relationship should also apply in settings where there is complex, mesoscale variation in habitat and predation risk, provided that animals sense this variation and move about so as to achieve similar survival at all mesoscale rearing sites. The model predicts that changes in food and predation risk can be amplified violently in settings where juvenile survival rate is low, producing large changes in recruitment rates over time.
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Walters, C., Korman, J. Linking recruitment to trophic factors: revisiting the Beverton--Holt recruitment model from a life history and multispecies perspective. Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 9, 187–202 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008991021305
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008991021305