Carl Walters | |
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| Born | Carl John Walters |
| Alma mater | Colorado State University |
| Known for | Fisheries stock assessments, adaptive management,ecosystem modeling |
| Awards | Fellow of theRoyal Society of Canada (1998), Mote Eminent Scholar at FSU (2000-2001), Pew Fellow inMarine Conservation (2001), Murray A. Newman Award forMarine Conservation (2005), Volvo Environment Prize (2006), American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence (2006),Timothy R. Parsons Medal (2007), Order of British Columbia (2019) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Zoology,fisheries science,population ecology |
| Institutions | UBC Fisheries Centre,University of British Columbia |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert E. Vincent |
| Notes | |
Carl Walters (born 1944) is an American-born Canadianbiologist known for his work involving fisheries stock assessments, the adaptive management concept, andecosystem modeling.[1] Walters has been a professor ofZoology andFisheries at theUniversity of British Columbia since 1969.[2] He is one of the main developers of the ecological modelling softwareEcopath.[3] His most recent work focuses on how to adjust human behaviors in environments that are full of uncertainty.[1] He is a recent recipient of theVolvo Environment Prize (2006).[4] In 2019, Dr. Walters became a Member of theOrder of British Columbia.[5]
Carl Walters graduated fromBakersfield College with an A.A in 1963 and continued to Humboldt State College to graduate with a B.S. in 1965. After Walters graduated, he went toColorado State University to study the "Distribution and production of midges in an alpine lake" under the advisement of Dr. Robert E. Vincent. After obtaining his M.S. in 1967, Walters stayed on with R.E. Vincent to get his doctorate on the "Effects of fish introduction on invertebrate fauna of an alpine lake" and graduated in 1969. Walters did not go on for a postdoctoral position; instead he almost immediately started working at theUniversity of British Columbia inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[2]
Walters's first professorship was at theUniversity of British Columbia as an AssistantProfessor in theUBC Institute for Animal Resource Ecology. In 1977, he became an Associate Professor and then a Professor in 1982. Prior to his professional appointment atUBC, Walters worked for the California Department of Fish and Game and was also a graduate fellow, aconsultant, and an aide on numerous occasions.[2] He has taken sabbaticals to the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, theUniversity of Florida, where he is an adjunct professor, and Australia.[2] He has been on the editorial board for multiple journals including theCanadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,Conservation Ecology, andEcosystems and has been the associate editor of theJournal of Applied Mathematics and Computation and theNorthwest Environmental Journal.[2] He was the editor of the Open Fish Science Journal. Walters also served, and continues to serve, as aconsultant to many government agencies.
Walters usesmathematical modeling to understand how to successfully manage harvestablefisheries in a time of high uncertainty.[1][2] He specializes in fisheries stock assessments (e.g cod, salmon, anchoveta), adaptive management strategies, andecosystem modeling.[1][2][6][7] One of his goals has been, and continues to be, to try to bridge the gap betweenfisheries management,government, and fishing industries in order to provide accurate information to use in successfully and actively managing fisheries. His work in modelingpopulation dynamics and active adaptive management has made Walters a valuable member of the scientific community.
Other modeling equations like theBeverton-Holt model and the "hockey stick" model by Barrowman and Myers (2000) try to explain density dependent effects of juvenile fish populations using processes like recruitment and the number of eggs produced.[8][9][10] Fisheries biologists and population ecologists have used theBeverton-Holt model since the 1960s to describe the "stock-recruitment" relationship.[9] However, Walters believed that juvenile behavior could also explain the density dependent relationship that Beverton and Holt and Barrowman and Myers described. Walters thought that juvenile behavior, in conjunction with habitat, could explain the density dependency seen when foraging for prey and avoiding predators.[10][9] Walters wanted to give scientists a better understanding of the processes that drive density dependent fluctuations in ecosystem statistics (birth and death rates).[10] The foraging arena theory is also used, in conjunction with the ecosystem simulation program Ecopath withEcosim, to account for theindirect effects andtrophic cascades seen inpopulations.[10]
One of Walters biggest concerns in the rapidly changingenvironment is how managers can successfully managefisheries stocks in lieu of the uncertainty in making decisions.[10] His concept of active adaptive management involves large-scale experimentation, or "learning-by-doing", in order to understand thepopulation dynamics in fish communities and to aide in the decision-making process done by policy makers.[11] Walters encourages other scientists, managers, and policy makers to embrace the uncertainty in experiments and decisions and to develop ecosystem models based on the uncertainties in order to make multiplehypotheses instead of just onehypothesis.[10] Although active adaptive management has gained much support from the scientific community, there is still great hesitation from scientists and managers to implement these large-scale experiments.[12][13] These hesitations arise from large monetary costs for the experiments as well as the monitoring of the experiments, lack of an individual willing to take on the daunting task of organizing the experiments, the limitations of models to perfectly represent an ecosystem, and the conflictingecological values between different interest groups.[13] Although there are concerns when executing active adaptive management strategies, there is a growing need to modify the current methods for exploring and understanding ecosystems, especially on a larger scale, and active adaptive management strategies aim to do exactly that.
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