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HEIndividual fellowship2022–2024

FishAdapt · Adaptive potential for changes in environmental conditions in exploited fish species.

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2022-07-01 → 2024-06-30
EU contribution
€165,313
Participants
1
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Adaptive potential for changes in environmental conditions in exploited fish species.

Environmental conditions are changing in oceans and seas. Thus, species inhabiting these habitats must adapt to the new environmental conditions. Genetic diversity is the raw material of natural selection allowing adaptation to environmental changes. However, exploited marine species are likely to lose genetic diversity because of continuous harvesting. The goal of the FISHADAPT project was to assess the degree to which harvesting is producing a loss of genetic diversity and therefore, adaptive potential to changes in the sea environments in exploited fish populations. The project applied concepts and methods of population genetics and molecular evolution to comparatively evaluate the adaptive potential of two fish species with similar geographical distribution but different exploitation histories: the highly exploited European hake and the less harvested Ballan wrasse. The results show strong evidence of loss of genetic diversity caused by fishing industrial activities and a decreased adaptive potential to environmental change in European hake populations. In contrast, the long-term artisanally exploited population of Ballan wrasse show little evidence of genetic diversity loss, suggesting that this kind of fishery could be more long-term sustainable than harder exploitation. FISHADAPT project also produces a comparative Resilience Index to environmental change (RIec), which has the potential to be transferred within fisheries stock assessment and resulted a good first estimate of the likelihood of adaptation to environmental conditions in harvested fish populations.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Global change is threatening life at the seas by changing the physical, chemical, and biological conditions of the environment. Thus, marine species will need to adapt to the new environmental conditions to thrive. This adaptation depends on the genetic variation within species, as it is the raw material on which natural selection works. Because environmental conditions at the sea are heterogeneous and most marine species are distributed across these diverse marine environments, it is likely that the genetic variation making possible the adaptation to changes in the environment is currently present within populations. Thus, the genetic flow among populations (or environments) can be one of the most important factors enabling adaptation to future environmental conditions in fish. However, harvesting fish populations is likely eroding their capacity to adapt to changes in the environment where they live. Thus, the goal of this study is to quantify the adaptive potential and likelihood of adaptation to environmental change in exploited fish populations, contributing with clear transferable knowledge to fisheries management strategies towards long-term sustainability. To do this we will use neutral and functional genetic variation data of two fish species from different environments presenting different degrees of exploitation. Potentially adaptive genetic variation will be revealed by looking for signals of both, adaptive and balancing selection among environments. Then, we will quantify the amount of potentially adaptive genetic variation and the effect of harvesting on it. Finally, we will investigate the strength of selection to get a likelihood of adaptation to future environmental change. Overall, the expected results of this study will set up theoretical and methodological frameworks for the evaluation of the current levels of adaptive potential for future environmental change in exploited fisheries.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridCoordinatorSpain

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union