School of Life Science, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan 030000, China.
Eawag-Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zurich 8600, Switzerland.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Nov 21;120(47):e2307529120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2307529120. Epub 2023 Nov 13.
Marine reserves are considered essential for sustainable fisheries, although their effectiveness compared to traditional fisheries management is debated. The effect of marine reserves is mostly studied on short ecological time scales, whereas fisheries-induced evolution is a well-established consequence of harvesting. Using a size-structured population model for an exploited fish population of which individuals spend their early life stages in a nursery habitat, we show that marine reserves will shift the mode of population regulation from low size-selective survival late in life to low, early-life survival due to strong resource competition. This shift promotes the occurrence of rapid ecological cycles driven by density-dependent recruitment as well as much slower evolutionary cycles driven by selection for the optimal body to leave the nursery grounds, especially with larger marine reserves. The evolutionary changes increase harvesting yields in terms of total biomass but cause disproportionately large decreases in yields of larger, adult fish. Our findings highlight the importance of carefully considering the size of marine reserves and the individual life history of fish when managing eco-evolutionary marine systems to ensure both population persistence as well as stable fisheries yields.
海洋保护区被认为对可持续渔业至关重要，尽管其相对于传统渔业管理的有效性仍存在争议。海洋保护区的影响主要在短期生态时间尺度上进行研究，而渔业引起的进化是捕捞的一个既定后果。本研究使用一个具有结构的种群模型来模拟一个被捕捞鱼类种群，其中个体在幼鱼栖息地度过其早期生活阶段。研究结果表明，海洋保护区将使种群调节模式从生命后期的低体型选择性生存转变为由于资源竞争而导致的低早期生活生存，从而促进由密度依赖的补充驱动的快速生态循环，以及由选择离开幼鱼栖息地的最佳体型驱动的更慢的进化循环。这种进化变化会增加总生物量的捕捞产量，但会不成比例地导致较大成年鱼类的产量大幅下降。本研究结果强调了在管理生态进化海洋系统时，仔细考虑海洋保护区的大小和鱼类个体的生活史的重要性，以确保种群的持续存在和稳定的渔业产量。
