0000000000336518
AUTHOR
Jeffrey A Hutchings
Warming Accelerates the Onset of the Molecular Stress Response and Increases Mortality of Larval Atlantic Cod
Synopsis Temperature profoundly affects ectotherm physiology. Although differential thermal responses influence fitness, thus driving population dynamics and species distributions, our understanding of the molecular architecture underlying these responses is limited, especially during the critical larval stage. Here, using RNA-sequencing of laboratory-reared Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) larvae of wild origin, we find changes in gene expression in thousands of transcripts consistent with a severe cellular stress response at both ambient and projected (+2°C and +4°C) temperatures. In addition, specific responses to stress, heat, and hypoxia were commonly identified in gene ontology enrichment …
Tensions in the communication of science advice on fish and fisheries: northern cod, species at risk, sustainable seafood
Abstract Providing science-based advice can be challenging. Personal in its reflections, the story that follows asks throughout: What constitutes an appropriate model for the communication of science-based advice that best serves society? The first “front line,” in 1992, involved tenuous hypotheses on the collapse and recovery of Newfoundland's Northern cod (Gadus morhua), raising troubling questions about political influence on science-based advice and on its integrity. These questions subsequently motivated a critique written with two colleagues on the communication of science to decision-makers, provoking a telling invective from a government department in defence of the status quo. The …
Combined effects of exploitation and environmental change on life history: a comparative analysis on Atlantic herring
Abstract The consequences of fisheries-induced evolution on stock productivity and yield depend, to a large extent, on the general prospects for growth and survival. Here, we compare the selection pressures imposed by two distinct patterns of exploitation—principally targeting spawning or non-spawning aggregations—on age at maturity among 15 Canadian stocks of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) that have exhibited a consistent pattern of length-at-age responses to common large-scale environmental drivers since the 1960s. In accordance with expectations for maturity-dependent harvesting, the establishment of a spawner-targeted fishery in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence coincided with a shi…