Fishery-induced evolution: understanding selection on physiology and behaviour using simulated fishery approaches

Human predators are reshaping the evolutionary trajectories of wild animal populations. We are quickly changing the evolutionary landscape around us, through either active selection of desirable phenotypes, or by passive selection as a result of specific harvesting methods. Commercial fishing, with its global reach and enormous exploitation rates far in excess of natural predators, represents one of the strongest drivers of such anthropogenically-driven evolution. Our understanding of fisheries-induced evolution (FIE) is however fragmentary, historically reflecting a focus on size-selection and age at maturation. In addition, until now the vast majority of studies have investigated responses to selection on individual traits, as opposed to trying to understand the nexus of traits making up fishery vulnerability. In an effort to elucidate the evolutionary effect of commercial fishing on fish populations, and to understand some of the selective mechanisms that might operate in real fisheries, I conducted a number of laboratory simulations of commercial fishing on zebrafish Danio rerio. These experiments tested the importance of morphology, group behaviour and environmental stochasticity on fishery selection, as well as yielding an insight into the multigenerational effect of fishery selection