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…