ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Quantifying selection differentials caused by recreational fishing: development of modeling framework and application to reproductive investment in pike (Esox lucius)

The potential for size-selective fishing to cause contemporary evolutionary changes in adaptive traits has attracted considerable interest in recent years (Jørgensen et al. 2007; Kuparinen and Merilä 2007). Fishing-induced selection has been identified as having the capacity to change various life-history traits as well as morphological, behavioral, and physiological traits (reviewed by Policansky 1993; Law 2000; Heino and Godø 2002; Dieckmann and Heino 2007; Hutchings and Fraser 2007; Kuparinen and Merilä 2007; Jørgensen et al. 2007; Uusi-Heikkilä et al. 2008; Hard et al. 2008). These changes can affect stock properties such as yield, average biomass, average value of harvested fish, catchability and stock recovery, and are also troublesome from the perspectives of conservation and management when genetic change, as opposed to merely phenotypic change, is involved (Heino 1998; Law 2000; Conover et al. 2005; Hutchings 2005; Jørgensen et al. 2007; Allendorf et al. 2008; Enberg et al. 2009; Philipp et al. 2009; Wang and Höök 2009). Most studies estimating fishing-induced selection differentials acting on adaptive life-history traits have focused on commercially exploited species (Rowell et al. 1989; Rijnsdorp 1993a; Miller and Kapuscinski 1994; Sinclair et al. 2002; Williams and Shertzer 2005; Andersen et al. 2007; Hutchings and Rowe 2008). This is surprising given the popularity of recreational angling in all industrialized countries (Arlinghaus et al. 2002). Lewin et al. (2006) summarized current knowledge on recreational angling patterns and found that locally high annual exploitation rates of up to 80% and pronounced selectivity for