Raincoast scientists contribute to paper on impacts of commercial harvesting

Raincoast scientists Dr. Chris Darimont and Dr. Paul Paquet are authors on an important paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.\’a0 The paper examines the impacts of commercial harvesting on plants and animals. \
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The researchers examined 29 species of vertebrates, invertebrates and plants and found that rates of evolutionary change were three times higher in species subject to \’93harvest selection\’94 than in other species.\’a0 The study included data on BC salmon, which have declined in size compared with historical populations as a result of the size-selective predation imposed by fisheries.\
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New York Times,\’a0 January 12, 2009, Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution\
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Globe and Mail,\’a0 January 13, 2009,\’a0 Natural selection gives way to human selection\
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract)\’a0 Human predators outpace other agents of trait change in the wild

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