Freshwater Ecosystems: From Models to Applications

Mazzucco, R., Ficker, H., Gassner, H., Wanzenboeck, J., Nguyen, T.V., Kim, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7626-4238, Heo, M., Chon, T.S., & Dieckmann, U. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7089-0393 (2015). Freshwater Ecosystems: From Models to Applications. In: Systems Analysis 2015 - A Conference in Celebration of Howard Raiffa, 11 -13 November, 2015, Laxenburg, Austria.

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Abstract

Freshwater ecosystems—lakes and streams—are being endangered by agricultural, urban, and industrial pollution; hydraulic engineering; and overexploitation, which threaten their capacity to provide important services (recreation and supply of food and clean water, among others). Ecological modeling may be employed to estimate impacts and analyze mitigation strategies. Toy models are easy to construct, but applying them to real-world problems is often challenging. Here, we show in two case studies how the connection from model to application can be made. The first study analyzes whether and how the impact of climatic change on a mostly recreational fishery in an Alpine lake can be mitigated, while the second looks at restoring biodiversity after cleaning up pollution in a Korean river system, using aquatic insects, which play an essential functional role in aquatic food-webs and are very sensitive to water quality, as indicators of ecosystem health. These studies highlight the ability of process-based eco-evolutionary models to generate testable hypotheses and contribute solutions to real-world problems.

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