Never Off the Hook—How Fishing Subverts Predator-Prey Relationships in Marine Teleosts

Mark G Meekan,Douglas P Chivers,Mark I Mccormick,Stephen D Simpson,Maud C O Ferrari

doi:10.3389/fevo.2018.00157

Abstract

We acknowledge financial support of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University and the University of Saskatchewan.

Highlights

Any organism that is subject to high rates of mortality due to human behavior rapidly evolves behavioral, anatomical, and demographic adaptations to reduce mortality rates
Humans are unique because unlike non-human predators, we have the ability to target adult life history stages of fishes, rather than juveniles (Darimont et al, 2015). This is possible because our fishing techniques circumvent and even directly counteract the evolutionary constraints that allow fish as prey to detect, recognize, and learn about non-human predators
This results in high efficiency, slowing the evolution of appropriate behavioral repertoires to avoid fishing by humans, despite the millennia-long use of very similar techniques

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Any organism that is subject to high rates of mortality due to human behavior rapidly evolves behavioral, anatomical, and demographic adaptations to reduce mortality rates Examples of this process occur across terrestrial and aquatic taxa of all sizes, phylogenies, and life history strategies (Sullivan et al, 2017). Because our fishing practices can act in direct opposition to selection that promotes survivorship in the face of non-human predators, we may enhance the evolution of traits that make fishes more susceptible to natural mortality This has the potential to reduce the resilience of populations targeted by fisheries and to delay their recovery from over-fishing. We show that fishing by humans disrupts and in some cases counteracts evolved predator-prey relationships through four principal means: the removal of size-structured relationships between predator and prey; the avoidance of predator recognition systems; the disruption of learning cues; and the rapid evolution of technology

IN THE SEA

PREDATOR RECOGNITION

LEARNING ABOUT PREDATORS

Findings

CONCLUSIONS