Large‐Scale Management Experiments and Learning by Doing

TLDR

Unmanaged ecosystems exhibit stability and instability with unexpected shifts from internal and external causes, a pattern that is even more pronounced in food or fiber production systems where data are sparse, process knowledge limited, and management itself alters the system, making surprise and change inevitable. The study reviews methods for developing, screening, and evaluating alternatives in a process where management partners with science to design probes that generate updated understanding and economic products. The authors propose a process in which management designs probes that simultaneously produce updated scientific insight and economic outputs.

Abstract

Even unmanaged ecosystems are characterized by combinations of stability and instability and by unexpected shifts in behavior from both internal and external causes. That is even more true of ecosystems managed for the production of food or fiber. Data are sparse, knowledge of processes limited, and the act of management changes the system being managed. Surprise and change is inevitable. Here we review methods to develop, screen, and evaluate alternatives in a process where management itself becomes partner with science by designing probes that produce updated understanding as well as economic product.