A new study has revealed a startling connection between overfishing and rapid evolution in codfish. Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) looked at the long-term population dynamics of codfish and found that overfishing had caused the fish to evolve at an accelerated rate. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that when codfish populations were depleted by fishing, the remaining individuals had to adapt to their new environment or face extinction. As a result, they evolved much faster than they would have in the absence of fishing pressure. The researchers suggest that this evolutionary process could help codfish populations to recover from overfishing more quickly than previously thought.

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source: Phys.org