Evolutionary regime shifts in age and size at maturation of exploited fish stocks.

ABSTRACT: Worldwide declines of fish stocks raise concerns about deleterious consequences of harvesting for stock abundances and individual life histories, and call for appropriate recovery strategies. Fishes in exploited stocks mature earlier at either larger or smaller sizes due to both genetic and plastic responses. The latter occur commonly when reduced competition for food leads to faster growth. Using a size-structured consumer-resource model, which accounts for both genetic and plastic responses, we show that fisheries-induced evolutionary changes in individual life history and stock properties can easily become irreversible. As a result of annual spawning, early maturation at small sizes and late maturation at large sizes can become alternative, evolutionarily and ecologically stable states

SUBMITTER: de Roos AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1634766 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature