Monitoring populations of marine animals has never been easy. Yet nowadays, as global natural resources become ever more depleted, tracking our precious marine animal populations is vitally important as part of a program of ecosystem management. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its resultant effects, to cite one instance, highlight how accurate information about marine populations is paramount to the management of oil drilling and the promotion of healthy ecosystem recovery.
Marine conservationists who oversee ecosystems—commercially viable fish stocks, for example, but especially federal- and state-protected areas—are in need of tools that will help them acquire better information about their status. Physicists can provide essential assistance in helping them to understand and implement the necessary measures to restore ecosystems. Modeling the dynamics of those systems, measuring the rates of individual biophysical properties, and helping to invent new technologies are only a few examples of the contributions we can make....
