Murphy's law revisited: longevity as a factor in recruitment to fish populations

Most fisheries selectively remove larger, older individuals from the pristine stock, thus, truncating its natural pyramid of age classes and reducing its natural and characteristic longevity. Theoretically, this may lead to a reduction in its fitness despite compensatory growth of survivors; this largely forgotten suggestion of Garth Murphy is supported by new evidence relating recruitment variability to natural longevity. For at least those stocks with highly episodic recruitment, the consequences of age-class truncation may be catastrophic, but this possibility is ignored by conventional fish stock management techniques. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.