Tuesday, December 9, 2008
ADMB-based computer
models are used globally to monitor populations of many endangered
and commercially valuable species, to develop place-based resource
management policies, and to reconstruct movements of animals tracked
with electronic tags. ADMB- based stock assessments are critical to
the management of commercially important fisheries stocks worth
billions of dollars as well as ecologically sensitive species, in the
United States and internationally. Every NOAA Fisheries Science
Center uses the ADMB software.
In 2007, scientists
from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Pelagic Fisheries Research
Program and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, in
consultation with scientists from NOAA Fisheries, created the
non-profit ADMB Foundation with the goal of increasing the number of
ADMB users by making the software free and open source.
During its first year
of operation, the UH Pelagic Fisheries Research Program provided a
home and logistical support for the Foundation. In partnership with
NOAA Fisheries and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and
Synthesis (NCEAS), the Foundation drafted a proposal to the Gordon
and Betty Moore Foundation, to acquire the copyright to the ADMB
software suite, in order to make it broadly and freely available to
the research community. A generous grant from the Moore Foundation
to NCEAS enabled an agreement with Otter Research Ltd. to open the
ADMB source.
ADMB
has proven to be an essential tool for a wide range of statistical
analysis, especially in fisheries stock assessments. With its recent
emergence as free software, it is likely that ADMB will find
application to a growing number of challenges in ecological modeling.
Many
top fisheries scientists have testified to the importance of ADMB for
creating sound stock and management models:
“Thanks
to ADMB, it is no longer necessary to omit or transform data because
they do not meet the arbitrary assumptions of some ‛canned’
software package. Instead, it is possible to include a diversity of
data in statistical models. This power has revolutionized modeling of
natural resources.” Dr.
John Sibert, Manager, Pelagic Fisheries Research Program, University
of Hawaii.
“It is no
exaggeration to say that the scientific assessment of many fisheries
would grind to a halt without ADMB. There are hundreds of other
applications for this tool that will undoubtedly benefit greatly by
making it a public piece of software.”
Professor Ray Hilborn, School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences,
University of Washington.
“ADMB has
empowered an entire generation of fishery stock assessment
scientists.”
Dr. Richard Methot, Senior Scientist for Assessments, NOAA Fisheries.
“Without ADMB,
the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission would be unable to
conduct the sophisticated [tuna stock] assessments that it currently
does.”
Dr. Mark Maunder, a Senior Scientist at the Inter-American Tropical
Tuna Commission.
Creation of the public
download web site is only the first step in making all aspects of
ADMB publicly available. Over the next year, a team of software
developers will improve documentation of the computer code with the
goal of making ADMB an open source enterprise. Releases of binaries
(executable code) for the Windows and Linux operating systems are
currently freely available, with a port to OS X to follow.
Ultimately, the full source code will be available, enabling
researchers to contribute their own enhancements and add-ons, using
the code repository and support forums established on the ADMB
project web site.
The Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation, established in 2000, seeks to advance environmental
conservation and cutting-edge scientific research around the world
and improve the quality of life in the San Francisco Bay Area. For
more information, visit
www.moore.org
.
