Fishing-induced life-history changes degrade and destabilize harvested ecosystems.

ABSTRACT: Fishing is widely known to magnify fluctuations in targeted populations. These fluctuations are correlated with population shifts towards young, small, and more quickly maturing individuals. However, the existence and nature of the mechanistic basis for these correlations and their potential ecosystem impacts remain highly uncertain. Here, we elucidate this basis and associated impacts by showing how fishing can increase fluctuations in fishes and their ecosystem, particularly when coupled with decreasing body sizes and advancing maturation characteristic of the life-history changes induced by fishing. More specifically, using an empirically parameterized network model of a well-studied lake ecosystem, we show how fishing may both increase fluctuations in fish abundances and also, when acc

SUBMITTER: Kuparinen A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4768105 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature