Today my latest paper came out in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Co-led by Valerio Sbragaglia at ICM in Barcelona (joint first-authorship) and with Marta Coll and Robert Arlinghaus, we provide a new perspective about the role that fisheries may have on the shoaling tendency and collective behaviour of exploited fish species. Besides discussing the different potential mechanisms (see also figure below), we highlight potential consequences for fish populations and food webs, and discuss possible repercussions for fisheries and conservation strategies.

It has been nice to work on the ideas of this paper and focusing a bit more on the important practical implications of my main research topic of individual heterogeneity and collective animal behaviour. I am looking forward to further work I will be doing with Valerio and our colleagues to start test some of the ideas we put forward in our paper and co-supervise students on the topic.

You can find the paper online here as well as a press release regarding our article. If you cannot access the paper, please send me an email!

Reference
Sbragaglia, V., Jolles, J. W., Coll, M., and Arlinghaus, R. (2021). Fisheries-induced changes of shoaling behaviour: mechanisms and potential consequences. Trends Ecol. Evol. 36, 885–888. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.015.