Introducing the symposium "Building on Beverton's legacy: life history variation and fisheries management"

2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 725-729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J Shuter ◽  
Peter A Abrams

Throughout his career, Ray Beverton displayed an interest in the life history diversity in marine and freshwater fish. The papers collected here describe recent research directed at documenting this diversity and understanding both its consequences and the processes that generate it. There are three themes: factors that direct life history dynamics; fishing as a force that redirects life history dynamics; and roles for life history statics in conservation management. The "dynamics" papers show that fish life histories can evolve in response to both natural and harvest-induced selective pressures. Evolution in response to harvesting can be rapid, with potentially dramatic effects on population dynamics and sustainable exploitation. The "statics" articles demonstrate how maturity traits combine with shifts in habitat use to shape the sensitivity of a population to habitat loss. Life history shifts can dramatically alter the safety of harvesting policies that were prudent in the past; shifts of the predators or prey of a harvested species can be as important as shifts in the harvested species itself. Further work on the ecological circumstances that favour different degrees of plastic or genetic life history responses to human impacts are needed to prevent inadvertent induction of long-lasing evolutionary changes in fish life histories.

2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (10) ◽  
pp. 1708-1719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Enberg ◽  
Christian Jørgensen ◽  
Marc Mangel

Fishing can induce evolutionary changes in individual life history traits, leading to fish that mature smaller and younger and with larger gonads, so that they reproduce more intensely. The steepness of a stock–recruitment relationship is commonly defined as the fraction of recruitment of an unfished population obtained when the spawning stock biomass is 20% of its unfished level. We use a model of harvest-induced evolutionary change to understand how the steepness of the stock–recruitment relationship changes due to fishing. If the true spawning stock biomass is known, the stock–recruitment relationship changes little under fishing-induced evolution and there is little concern for fisheries management. When management is based on a total biomass – recruitment relationship, recruitment may be underestimated, which is also of little concern from a sustainability perspective. However, when the number of spawners – recruitment relationship is used to forecast recruitment, management practice that ignores the evolution of steepness may overestimate recruitment and therefore recommend catches that exceed safe biological limits. Using outdated maturity ogives underestimates spawning stock biomass, which results in steeper and higher stock–recruitment relationships as life histories evolve. Although of little concern for sustainability, this may pose challenges for practical fisheries management.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Hutchings

Life histories describe how genotypes schedule their reproductive effort throughout life in response to factors that affect their survival and fecundity. Life histories are solutions that selection has produced to solve the problem of how to persist in a given environment. These solutions differ tremendously within and among species. Some organisms mature within months of attaining life, others within decades; some produce few, large offspring as opposed to numerous, small offspring; some reproduce many times throughout their lives while others die after reproducing just once. The exponential pace of life-history research provides an opportune time to engage and re-engage new generations of students and researchers on the fundamentals and applications of life-history theory. Chapters 1 through 4 describe the fundamentals of life-history theory. Chapters 5 through 8 focus on the evolution of life-history traits. Chapters 9 and 10 summarize how life-history theory and prediction has been applied within the contexts of conservation and sustainable exploitation. This primer offers an effective means of rendering the topic accessible to readers from a broad range of academic experience and research expertise.


Koedoe ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R.F. Terblanche ◽  
H. Van Hamburg

Due to their intricate life histories and the unique wing patterns and colouring the butterflies of the genus Chrysoritis are of significant conservation and aesthetic value. Thisoverview probes into practical examples of butterfly life history research applicable to environmental management of this relatively well-known invertebrate group in South Africa. Despite the pioneer work on life histories of Chrysoritis in the past, more should be done to understand the life history of the butterflies in the wild, especially their natural host plants and the behaviour of adults and larvae. A system of voucher specimens of host plants should be introduced in South Africa. Although various host plant species in nature are used by the members of Chrysoritis, including the Chrysoritis chrysaor group, the choice of these in nature by each species is significant for conservation management and in the case of Chrysoritis aureus perhaps even as a specific characteristic.A revision of the ant genus Crematogaster will benefit the conservation management of Chrysoritis species since some of these ant species may consist of a number of specieswith much more restricted distributions than previously thought. Rigorous quantified tudies of population dynamics of Chrysoritis butterflies are absent and the introductionof such studies will benefit conservation management of these localised butterflies extensively.


Inner Asia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Konagaya

AbstractIn this article I introduce our collection of oral histories composed of life histories recorded between 2001 and 2006. First, I discuss some devices implemented in the process of collecting life histories, which was to make oral histories 'polyphonic'. I then suggest that oral history always has a 'dual' tense, in that people talk about 'the past' from the view point of 'the present'. This is illustrated by six cases of statesmen narrating their views about socialist modernisation. Finally, using one of the cases, I demonstrate the co-existence of non-official or private opinions along with official opinions about the socialist period in life-history narratives in the post-socialist period. I call this 'ex-post value'.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246365
Author(s):  
Kellie J. Carim ◽  
Scott Relyea ◽  
Craig Barfoot ◽  
Lisa A. Eby ◽  
John A. Kronenberger ◽  
...  

Human activities that fragment fish habitat have isolated inland salmonid populations. This isolation is associated with loss of migratory life histories and declines in population density and abundance. Isolated populations exhibiting only resident life histories may be more likely to persist if individuals can increase lifetime reproductive success by maturing at smaller sizes or earlier ages. Therefore, accurate estimates of age and size at maturity across resident salmonid populations would improve estimates of population viability. Commonly used methods for assessing maturity such as dissection, endoscopy and hormone analysis are invasive and may disturb vulnerable populations. Ultrasound imaging is a non-invasive method that has been used to measure reproductive status across fish taxa. However, little research has assessed the accuracy of ultrasound for determining maturation status of small-bodied fish, or reproductive potential early in a species’ reproductive cycle. To address these knowledge gaps, we tested whether ultrasound imaging could be used to identify maturing female Westslope Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi). Our methods were accurate at identifying maturing females reared in a hatchery setting up to eight months prior to spawning, with error rates ≤ 4.0%; accuracy was greater for larger fish. We also imaged fish in a field setting to examine variation in the size of maturing females among six wild, resident populations of Westslope Cutthroat Trout in western Montana. The median size of maturing females varied significantly across populations. We observed oocyte development in females as small as 109 mm, which is smaller than previously documented for this species. Methods tested in this study will allow researchers and managers to collect information on reproductive status of small-bodied salmonids without disrupting fish during the breeding season. This information can help elucidate life history traits that promote persistence of isolated salmonid populations.


The Condor ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Ricklefs

Abstract Although we have learned much about avian life histories during the 50 years since the seminal publications of David Lack, Alexander Skutch, and Reginald Moreau, we still do not have adequate explanations for some of the basic patterns of variation in life-history traits among birds. In part, this reflects two consequences of the predominance of evolutionary ecology thinking during the past three decades. First, by blurring the distinction between life-history traits and life-table variables, we have tended to divorce life histories from their environmental context, which forms the link between the life history and the life table. Second, by emphasizing constrained evolutionary responses to selective factors, we have set aside alternative explanations for observed correlations among life-history traits and life-table variables. Density-dependent feedback and independent evolutionary response to correlated aspects of the environment also may link traits through different mechanisms. Additionally, in some cases we have failed to evaluate quantitatively ideas that are compelling qualitatively, ignored or explained away relevant empirical data, and neglected logical implications of certain compelling ideas. Comparative analysis of avian life histories shows that species are distributed along a dominant slow-fast axis. Furthermore, among birds, annual reproductive rate and adult mortality are directly proportional to each other, requiring that pre-reproductive survival is approximately constant. This further implies that age at maturity increases dramatically with increasing adult survival rate. The significance of these correlations is obscure, particularly because survival and reproductive rates at each age include the effects of many life-history traits. For example, reproductive rate is determined by clutch size, nesting success, season length, and nest-cycle length, each of which represents the outcome of many different interactions of an individual's life-history traits with its environment. Resolution of the most basic issues raised by patterns of life histories clearly will require innovative empirical, modeling, and experimental approaches. However, the most fundamental change required at this time is a broadening of the evolutionary ecology paradigm to include a variety of alternative mechanisms for generating patterns of life-history variation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 273 (1587) ◽  
pp. 741-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Taborsky

There is increasing evidence that the environment experienced early in life can strongly influence adult life histories. It is largely unknown, however, how past and present conditions influence suites of life-history traits regarding major life-history trade-offs. Especially in animals with indeterminate growth, we may expect that environmental conditions of juveniles and adults independently or interactively influence the life-history trade-off between growth and reproduction after maturation. Juvenile growth conditions may initiate a feedback loop determining adult allocation patterns, triggered by size-dependent mortality risk. I tested this possibility in a long-term growth experiment with mouthbrooding cichlids. Females were raised either on a high-food or low-food diet. After maturation half of them were switched to the opposite treatment, while the other half remained unchanged. Adult growth was determined by current resource availability, but key reproductive traits like reproductive rate and offspring size were only influenced by juvenile growth conditions, irrespective of the ration received as adults. Moreover, the allocation of resources to growth versus reproduction and to offspring number versus size were shaped by juvenile rather than adult ecology. These results indicate that early individual history must be considered when analysing causes of life-history variation in natural populations.


1996 ◽  
Vol 351 (1345) ◽  
pp. 1341-1348 ◽  

Several empirical models have attempted to account for the covariation among life history traits observed in a variety of organisms. One of these models, the fast-slow continuum hypothesis, emphasizes the role played by mortality at different stages of the life cycle in shaping the large array of life history variation. Under this scheme, species can be arranged from those suffering high adult mortality levels to those undergoing relatively low adult mortality. This differential mortality is responsible for the evolution of contrasting life histories on either end of the continuum. Species undergoing high adult mortality are expected to have shorter life cycles, faster development rates and higher fecundity than those experiencing lower adult mortality. The theory has proved accurate in describing the evolution of life histories in several animal groups but has previously not been tested in plants. Here we test this theory using demographic information for 83 species of perennial plants. In accordance with the fast-slow continuum, plants undergoing high adult mortality have shorter lifespans and reach sexual maturity at an earlier age. However, demographic traits related to reproduction (the intrinsic rate of natural increase, the net reproductive rate and the average rate of decrease in the intensity of natural selection on fecundity) do not show the covariation expected with longevity, age at first reproducion and life expectancy at sexual maturity. Contrary to the situation in animals, plants with multiple meristems continuously increase their size and, consequently, their fecundity and reproductive value. This may balance the negative effect of mortality on fitness, thus having no apparent effect in the sign of the covariation between these two goups of life history traits.


2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1782) ◽  
pp. 20132458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eli M. Swanson ◽  
Ben Dantzer

Despite the diversity of mammalian life histories, persistent patterns of covariation have been identified, such as the ‘fast–slow’ axis of life-history covariation. Smaller species generally exhibit ‘faster’ life histories, developing and reproducing rapidly, but dying young. Hormonal mechanisms with pleiotropic effects may mediate such broad patterns of life-history variation. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is one such mechanism because heightened IGF-1 activity is related to traits associated with faster life histories, such as increased growth and reproduction, but decreased lifespan. Using comparative methods, we show that among 41 mammalian species, increased plasma IGF-1 concentrations are associated with fast life histories and altricial reproductive patterns. Interspecific path analyses show that the effects of IGF-1 on these broad patterns of life-history variation are through its direct effects on some individual life-history traits (adult body size, growth rate, basal metabolic rate) and through its indirect effects on the remaining life-history traits. Our results suggest that the role of IGF-1 as a mechanism mediating life-history variation is conserved over the evolutionary time period defining mammalian diversification, that hormone–trait linkages can evolve as a unit, and that suites of life-history traits could be adjusted in response to selection through changes in plasma IGF-1.


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