Impact of maximum sustainable yield on independent populations

We investigate a community of independent logistically growing populations under a common harvesting effort which leads to the total maximum sustainable yield (TMSY). It is surprising that in the case of two populations with approximately equal carrying capacities, TMSY is reached while both populations persist, although their biotic potential may differ substantially. In general, however, TMSY with a common harvesting effort implies suboptimal fishing of some populations, overfishing of others and extinction of the rest of the populations. Since extinction of populations is a rule rather than an exception and since a community of independent populations is more robust than an ecosystem with multiple trophic levels, we call for urgent retraction of all legal documents advocating MSY in ecosystems. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.