Maximum sustainable yield

In population ecology and economics, maximum sustainable yield or MSY is theoretically, the largest yield (or catch) that can be taken from a species' stock over an indefinite period. Fundamental to the notion of sustainable harvest, the concept of MSY aims to maintain the population size at the point of maximum growth rate by harvesting the individuals that would normally be added to the population, allowing the population to continue to be productive indefinitely. Under the assumption of logistic growth, resource limitation does not constrain individuals’ reproductive rates when populations are small, but because there are few individuals, the overall yield is small. At intermediate population densities, also represented by half the carrying capacity, individuals are able to breed to their maximum rate. At this point, called the maximum sustainable yield, there is a surplus of individuals that can be harvested because growth of the population is at its maximum point due to the large number of reproducing individuals. Above this point, density dependent factors increasingly limit breeding until the population reaches carrying capacity. At this point, there are no surplus individuals to be harvested and yield drops to zero. The maximum sustainable yield is usually higher than the optimum sustainable yield and maximum economic yield.