Biodiversité

In 1999 California passed the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) mandating an expansion of California’s few marine protected areas into a network of marine protected areas along the California coast. In 2005 California began a decision -­‐ making process to implement this act, and that process was completed in 2013. One of the tools used by dec ision -­‐ makers and stakeholders in that process was the use of mathematical models to project the effects of various proposed spatial configurations of MPAs in terms of their long -­‐ term effects on fishery yield and population biomass of various species of fis h. Because of the initial nascent nature of this kind of modeling, the ability to make these projections developed as the process proceeded (Botsford, et al. 2014).