Complexity Digest 2007.44 - 12.01

15-Nov-2007

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Fisheries: Nets Versus Nature, Nature Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: The life-histories of pike adjust quickly to shifts in the opposing forces of fishing and natural selection. Such rapid changes suggest that evolutionary dynamics must be incorporated into fisheries management.

People like to catch big fish, sometimes so much so that fish sizes overall become greatly diminished. According to one view, the continual removal of large fish from a population sets the stage for rapid, undesirable evolutionary changes, including slower growth, earlier adult maturation and permanently smaller size.