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Science 27 July 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5530, pp. 629 - 637
DOI: 10.1126/science.1059199
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Review

Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems

Jeremy B. C. Jackson,12* Michael X. Kirby,3 Wolfgang H. Berger,1 Karen A. Bjorndal,4 Louis W. Botsford,5 Bruce J. Bourque,6 Roger H. Bradbury,7 Richard Cooke,2 Jon Erlandson,8 James A. Estes,9 Terence P. Hughes,10 Susan Kidwell,11 Carina B. Lange,1 Hunter S. Lenihan,12 John M. Pandolfi,13 Charles H. Peterson,12 Robert S. Steneck,14 Mia J. Tegner,1dagger Robert R. Warner15

Ecological extinction caused by overfishing precedes all other pervasive human disturbance to coastal ecosystems, including pollution, degradation of water quality, and anthropogenic climate change. Historical abundances of large consumer species were fantastically large in comparison with recent observations. Paleoecological, archaeological, and historical data show that time lags of decades to centuries occurred between the onset of overfishing and consequent changes in ecological communities, because unfished species of similar trophic level assumed the ecological roles of overfished species until they too were overfished or died of epidemic diseases related to overcrowding. Retrospective data not only help to clarify underlying causes and rates of ecological change, but they also demonstrate achievable goals for restoration and management of coastal ecosystems that could not even be contemplated based on the limited perspective of recent observations alone.

1 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0244, USA.
2 Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archeology, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama.
3 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 735 State Street, Suite 300, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA.
4 Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research and Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
5 Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
6 Department of Anthropology, 155 Pettengill Hall, Bates College, Lewiston, ME 04240, USA.
7 Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
8 Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
9 U.S. Geological Survey, A-316 Earth and Marine Sciences Building, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
10 Center for Coral Reef Biodiversity, Department of Marine Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia.
11 Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
12 Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 3431 Arendell Street, Morehead City, NC 28557, USA.
13 Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0121, USA.
14 School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Darling Marine Center, Orono, ME 04573, USA.
15 Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jbcj{at}ucsd.edu

dagger    Deceased.

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