Silverside Adaptation

It has become evident that fisheries can inflict evolutionary changes in the exploited populations, but the full extent of these changes and their impacts on future fisheries yields and sustainability remain an open question. Using high-throughput DNA sequencing methods, we have revisited a seminal study, which demonstrated that experimental size-selective harvesting of Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia, a small marine fish) caused substantial changes in growth rates and a suite of other traits over less than four generations. Characterizing the genomic basis underlying these observed changes will improve our mechanistic understanding of how fisheries-induced evolution operates, and will illustrate which genomic impacts we may expect in wild commercial fish stocks if they have undergone similar evolution due to fishing pressure (we're also looking at this directly; see also the section on historical DNA below).