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I don't like how this is worded. Makes it sound as though the cod are actively reducing their size. But this is very straight forward Darwin's Theory, survival
by skeledrew 1y ago
I don't like how this is worded. Makes it sound as though the cod are actively reducing their size. But this is very straight forward Darwin's Theory, survival of the fittest, in action. In this case, the "fittest" cod are the ones with the propensity to be small, since they can escape the nets and survive to breed and pass on that propensity.
And it follows that there won't be a "bounce back" of the larger cod any time soon, as it takes thousands of years in a minimally interrupted state for such diversity to come about in nature. Of course this applies to all other living creatures as well.
- VWWHFSfQ 1y ago> it takes thousands of years in a minimally interrupted state for such diversity to come about in nature The article says it only took 30 years to kill off all the big cod by only allowing the generically-smaller cod to escape and continue breeding. Now that all the eastern cod are protected, maybe it will only take 30 years for the gene pool to return to normal size distribution.
- griffzhowl 1y agoI'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that: previously there were genetic variants for large and small sizes. Now a high proportion of the larger variants have been removed from the gene pool. To reverse that in a similar time frame would need a massive selection pressure on the smaller variants. So you would need something like industrial scale fishing that removed the smaller adults, but didn't take out the juveniles who would become big fish, while also letting go the bigger adults. It doesn't sound feasible