Evolution of movement rate increases the effectiveness of marine reserves for the conservation of pelagic fishes

Current debates about the efficacy of no-take marine reserves (MR) in protecting large pelagic fish such as tuna and sharks have usually not considered the evolutionary dimension of this issue, which emerges because the propensity to swim away from a given place, like any other biological trait, will probably vary in a heritable fashion among individuals. Here, based on spatially-explicit simulations, we investigated whether selection to remain in MRs to avoid higher fishing mortality can lead to the evolution of more philopatric fish. Our simulations, which covered a range of life histories among tuna species (skipjack tuna vs. Atlantic Bluefin tuna) and shark species (great white sharks vs. spiny dogfish) suggested that MRs were most effective at maintaining viable population sizes when movement distances were lowest. Decreased movement rate evolved following the establishment of marine reserves, and this evolution occurred more rapidly with higher fishing pressure. Evolutionary reduc...

当前关于禁捕海洋保护区（no-take marine reserves, MR）在保护金枪鱼、鲨鱼等大型洄游性鱼类方面的有效性的学术争论，通常未考量该议题的演化维度——这一维度的产生源于：如同其他生物性状一般，个体离开特定区域的倾向大概率会在种群内以可遗传的方式呈现个体间差异。本研究基于空间显式模拟（spatially-explicit simulations），探究了为规避更高捕捞死亡率而选择留在保护区内的选择压力，是否会催生出更具归巢性的鱼类（philopatric fish）种群。我们的模拟覆盖了不同金枪鱼物种（鲣鱼vs大西洋蓝鳍金枪鱼）与鲨鱼物种（大白鲨vs白斑角鲨）的多种生活史类型，结果显示：当鱼类移动距离最短时，禁捕海洋保护区在维持可存活种群规模方面的效果最优。海洋保护区设立后，鱼类的移动速率会演化出降低的特征，且捕捞压力越高，这一演化进程越快。演化层面的（Evolutionary reduc...）