Managing Evolving Fish Stocks

By C. Jørgensen, K. Enberg, E. Dunlop, Robert Arlinghaus, D. Boukal, K. Brander, Bruno Ernande, Anna GŒrdmark, F. Johnston, S. Matsumura and 7 more. 2007

370 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Darwinian evolution is the driving process of innovation and adaptation across the world’s biota. Acting on top of natural selection, human-induced selection pressures can also cause rapid evolution. Sometimes such evolution has undesirable consequences, one example being the spreading resistance to antibiotics and pesticides, which causes suffering and billion-dollar losses annually (1). A comparable anthropogenic selection pressure originates from fishing, which has become the main source of mortality in many fish stocks, and may exceed natural mortality by more than 400% (2). This has, however, been largely ignored, even though studies based on fisheries data and controlled experiments have provided strong empirical evidence for fisheries-induced evolution over a range of species and regions (see table, page 1248). These evolutionary changes are unfolding on decadal time scales—much faster than previously thought. Life-history theory predicts that increased mortality generally favors evolution toward earlier sexual maturation at smaller size and elevated reproductive effort. Fishing that is selective with respect to size, maturity status, behavior, or morphology causes further evolutionary pressures (3). Evidence that harvesting can bring about genetic changes comes from breeding programs in aquaculture, which have shown heritable genetic variation in numerous traits (4), and from experiments

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Citations in the corpus

What makes fish vulnerable to capture by hooks? A conceptual framework and a review of key determinants (2017, background): “In many fishing situations, larger fish are preferentially captured and such size- based exploitation has implications for the sustainability of wild stocks (Jørgensen et al., 2007; Laugen et al., 2014; Palkovacs, 2011).”
Fisheries-induced evolution (2015, unknown): “ 13 Figure Captions Figure 1 Estimated age‐dependent profiles of mortality for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the North Sea from fishing, in comparison to predation and other natural causes.”
Reproductive resilience: a paradigm shift in understanding spawner-recruit systems in exploited marine fish (2017, unknown): “Measures of reproductive resilience with management applications There is growing evidence that long-term high exploitation rates truncate age distributions, with feedback loops affecting other life history traits, especially maturation schedules (Jørgensen et al. 2007; Heino et al. 2013).”
Synergistic effects of fishing-induced demographic changes and climate variation on fish population dynamics (2011, background): “…harvested populations to external forces (i.e. climate variation and fishing) ranges from observable changes in demographic parameters, such as life span and population growth rate (e.g. Anderson et al. 2008), to hidden evolutionary modifications in life history traits (e.g. Jørgensen et al. 2007).”
Modelling climate change impacts on marine fish populations: process-based integration of ocean warming, acidification and other environmental drivers (2016, background): “…level may also act synergistically with 236 impacts of human exploitation, as fishing pressure can lead to a reduction in size at 237 maturation (Law, 2000, Jørgensen et al., 2007) and to a higher sensitivity towards 238 environmental fluctuations in exploited stocks (Perry et al., 2010).”
Trends and management implications of human-influenced life-history changes in marine ectotherms (2016, background): “Some of the most rapid 88 changes in life-history traits have been observed in commercially harvested fishes (Jørgensen et al. 2007; 89 Devine et al. 2012), where the rate of change can be as high as 1-4% per year for size and age at maturity 90 (Audzijonyte et al. 2013a) and 2.5% per year for…”