Overfishing Linked to Rapid Evolution of Codfish
Wednesday, May 31, 2023 - 15:23
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The overfishing of codfish spanning the second half of the 20th century indicates that human action can force evolutionary changes more quickly than widely believed, according to a Rutgers-led study. Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a report by scientists offers the first genomic evidence that Atlantic cod evolved new traits over only decades during a period of overfishing - evolutionary changes that scientists formerly believed could take millions of years.