Fishing, fast growth and climate variability increase the risk of collapse.

ABSTRACT: Species around the world have suffered collapses, and a key question is why some populations are more vulnerable than others. Traditional conservation biology and evidence from terrestrial species suggest that slow-growing populations are most at risk, but interactions between climate variability and harvest dynamics may alter or even reverse this pattern. Here, we test this hypothesis globally. We use boosted regression trees to analyse the influences of harvesting, species traits and climate variability on the risk of collapse (decline below a fixed threshold) across 154 marine fish populations around the world. The most important factor explaining collapses was the magnitude of overfishing, while the duration of overfishing best explained long-term depletion. However, fast growth was th

SUBMITTER: Pinsky ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4632620 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature