Meeting yield and conservation objectives by balancing harvesting of juveniles and adults

Abstract: Sustainable yields that are at least 80% of the maximum sustainable yield are sometimes referred to as pretty good yield (PGY). The range of PGY harvesting strategies is generally broad and thus leaves room to account for additional objectives besides high yield. Here, we analyze stage-dependent harvesting strategies that realize PGY with conservation as a second objective. We show that (1) PGY harvesting strategies can give large conservation benefits and (2) equal harvesting rates of juveniles and adults is often a good strategy. These conclusions are based on trade-off curves between yield and four measures of conservation that form in two established population models, one age-structured and one stage-structured model, when considering different harvesting rates of juveniles and adults. These conclusions hold for a broad range of parameter settings, though our investigation of robustness also reveals that (3) predictions of the age-structured model are more sensitive to variations in parameter values than those of the stage-structured model. Finally, we find that (4) measures of stability that are often quite difficult to assess in the field (e.g.~basic reproduction ratio and resilience) are systematically negatively correlated with impacts on biomass and impact on size structure, so that these later quantities can provide integrative signals to detect possible collapses.