We analyse the potential of intensive exploitation to have caused evolutionary changes in the age and length at maturation in North Sea plaice Pleuronectes platessa. Such evolutionary change in the onset of maturation is expected given that fishing mortality is more than four times higher than natural mortality. In order to disentangle phenotypic plasticity from evolutionary change, we employ t...

Jensen, A.L., 1991. Simulation of fish population responses to exploitation. Ecol. Modelling, 55: 203-218. A model that couples Larkin's predator-prey model, Ivlev's feeding model, Ursin's growth equation and the exponential mortality model was applied for simulation of the responses of fish populations to exploitation. Simulations were done without food-limited growth, with food-limited growth...

We assess the potential consequences of recent (2012) fishing conditions on the future biological status of the three tropical tuna stocks, based upon the new tropical tuna stock assessments. Projected status in 2032 is reported relative to spawning biomass and fishing mortality reference points in absolute terms (as a median of the projection outcomes) and in probabilistic terms. Here, we have...

Fishing reduces stock size and shifts demographics, and selective mortality may also lead to evolutionary changes. Previous studies suggest that traits may change evolutionarily because of fishing on decadal time scales. Here we examine the potential bioeconomic impacts of fishing-induced evolutionary change. We used a life-history model with stock dynamics based on evolving maturation age, whi...

Predators commonly share prey with human exploiters, intuitively suggesting that there is an inherent human–predator conflict through competition for prey. Here we studied the effects of fishing and predation mortality on biomass distributions and yields of shared prey using a size-structured model of competing populations, describing the life histories of Baltic Sea sprat and herring. Whereas ...

A plea for linking assessment and management to the broader ecosystem state has been made several times in the fisheries literature. The need for ecosystem considerations is obvious for Baltic herring stock which has experienced large fluctuations in growth and natural mortality rate. Biological reference points, based on stock-recruitment data, have gained importance under precautionary approa...