Ecological, Angler, and Spatial Heterogeneity Drive Social and Ecological Outcomes in an Integrated Landscape Model of Freshwater Recreational Fisheries

Freshwater recreational fisheries constitute complex adaptive social-ecological systems where mobile anglers link spatially structured ecosystems. In this article, a general social-ecological model of a spatial recreational fishery for northern pike (Esox lucius) that included an empirically measured mechanistic utility model driving angler behaviors is presented. Emergent properties at the macro-scale (e.g., region) as a result of local-scale fish-angler interactions, while systematically examining key heterogeneities in angler behavior and lake ecology are studied. Three key insights are offered. First, the angler population size and the resulting latent regional angling effort exerts a much greater impact on the overall regional-level overfishing outcome than any residential pattern (urban or rural), but the residential pattern affects the location of local overfishing. Second, simplifying a heterogeneous angler population to a homogenous one representing the preference and behaviors of an average angler risks severely underestimating landscape-level effort and regional overfishing. Third, ecological factors resulting in variation across lakes in juvenile survival rates avoided the systematic overexploitation of ecologically more productive systems. In conclusion, understanding regional-level outcomes depends on considering four key ingredients: regional angler population size, the angler population composition, the specific residential pattern in place and the details of spatial ecological variation.