Data from: Interplay of trophic relaxation and directional selection shapes eco-evolutionary responses to selective harvest in predator-prey systems

Fisheries-Induced Evolution (FIE) describes the evolutionary changes in
life-history traits exhibited by target species in response to selective
fishing pressures. Current studies predominantly focus on single-species
contexts, often assuming stationary natural selection and neglecting the
impact of interacting species. In this study, using an eco-evolutionary
predator-prey model, we demonstrate that the presence of interacting
species can fundamentally modify, or even reverse, the evolutionary
responses of target species to fisheries. Specifically, we show that
target species can evolve to exhibit larger body sizes, even when
fisheries preferentially target large individuals. A novel mechanism is
proposed to elucidate this counterintuitive outcome. Fisheries influence
the evolutionary adaptation of target species through both direct and
indirect pathways. The direct pathway, termed “directional selection”,
occurs when fisheries selectively target individuals with specific
characteristics, thereby distorting the fitness landscape, akin to
processes observed in single-species systems. The indirect pathway,
referred to as “trophic relaxation”, depicts that fisheries weaken the
predator-prey trophic link, subsequently altering the coevolutionary
dynamics between predator and prey. These pathways can operate
concurrently, leading to either antagonistic or synergistic evolutionary
outcomes, which depend on the coevolutionary dynamics of the predator-prey
system, harvest patterns, and the selectivity of fishing gear. Our
findings highlight that the evolutionary responses of target species to
fisheries selection are variable and significantly influenced by both the
interactions among species and fishing activities.