LONG TERM TREND IN THE MATURATION REACTION NORM OF TWO COD…两种的长期趋势.pdfVIP

Ecological Applications, 14(4), 2004, pp. 1257–1271 2004 by the Ecological Society of America LONG-TERM TREND IN THE MATURATION REACTION NORM OF TWO COD STOCKS S. BAROT ,1,4,5 M. HEINO,2,4 L. O’BRIEN,3 AND U. DIECKMANN4 1 IRD-LEST, 32 Avenue H. Varagnat, 93143 Bondy cedex, France 2Institute of Marine Research, P.O. Box 1870 Nordnes, N-5817 Bergen, Norway 3National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543 USA 4Adaptive Dynamics Network, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria Abstract. Average age and size at maturation have decreased in many commercially exploited fish stocks during the last decades. This phenomenon could be either a direct phenotypic response to some environmental variation or the evolutionary consequence of some selective pressure. Traditionally used maturation indices, e.g., the age and size at which 50% of individuals are mature, are not appropriate to assess the causes of changes in maturation because they are influenced, in addition to maturation per se, by growth and survival. To make up for this shortcoming, we use a reaction-norm-based approach to disentangle evolutionary changes and phenotypic plasticity. A method is presented to es- timate the reaction norm for age and size at maturation from data commonly gathered for the management of fisheries. This method is applied to data on Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine stocks of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). The results show that maturation reaction norms in these stock