A1 Journal article (refereed)
Multiple-batch spawning : a risk-spreading strategy disarmed by highly intensive size-selective fishing rate (2022)

Hočevar, S., Hutchings, J. A., & Kuparinen, A. (2022). Multiple-batch spawning : a risk-spreading strategy disarmed by highly intensive size-selective fishing rate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B : biological sciences, 289(1981), Article 20221172. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1172

JYU authors or editors

Hocevar, Sara
Hutchings, Jeffrey
Kuparinen, Anna

Publication details

All authors or editors: Hočevar, Sara; Hutchings, Jeffrey A.; Kuparinen, Anna

Journal or series: Proceedings of the Royal Society B : biological sciences

ISSN: 0962-8452

eISSN: 1471-2954

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: 31/08/2022

Volume: 289

Issue number: 1981

Article number: 20221172

Publisher: The Royal Society

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1172

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/82920

Abstract

Can the advantage of risk-managing life-history strategies become a disadvantage under human-induced evolution? Organisms have adapted to the variability and uncertainty of environmental conditions with a vast diversity of life-history strategies. One such evolved strategy is multiple-batch spawning, a spawning strategy common to long-lived fishes that ‘hedge their bets' by distributing the risk to their offspring on a temporal and spatial scale. The fitness benefits of this spawning strategy increase with female body size, the very trait that size-selective fishing targets. By applying an empirically and theoretically motivated eco-evolutionary mechanistic model that was parameterized for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), we explored how fishing intensity may alter the life-history traits and fitness of fishes that are multiple-batch spawners. Our main findings are twofold; first, the risk-spreading strategy of multiple-batch spawning is not effective against fisheries selection, because the fisheries selection favours smaller fish with a lower risk-spreading effect; and second, the ecological recovery in population size does not secure evolutionary recovery in the population size structure. The beneficial risk-spreading mechanism of the batch spawning strategy highlights the importance of recovery in the size structure of overfished stocks, from which a full recovery in the population size can follow.

Keywords: evolutionary ecology; fishing; overfishing; life cycle (natural science); reproductive behaviour; Atlantic cod

Free keywords: Atlantic cod; bet-hedging; fitness; fisheries-induced evolution; multiple-batch spawning; size-selective fishing

Fields of science: