Fish are shrinking around the world. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

boem@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 132 points –
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no one can agree why

I think most people can agree it's a combination of pollution, overfishing and climate change. Probably just unclear which one of those factors in the most.

Crazy idea, but what about fishing-driven evolutionary pressure. If all the biggest fish are getting caught and killed, won't that give smaller fish an evolutionary advantage?

Very possible, but with all things happening it's pretty hard to be sure it's that and not fish growing less because they're being poisoned by microplastics.

Nailed it. Exactly the answer I read in an article way back when. Commented on it above.

Remove the big fish, only the smaller ones that came to maturity faster get to reproduce.

Given nature's survival of the fittest, you miiight be onto something.

He's not. It's the big fish that avoid getting caught.

If all the biggest fish are getting caught and killed, won’t that give smaller fish an evolutionary advantage?

Fishing is a little bit different than that. It's the big fish who are able to avoid getting caught, which is how they get to live to be so big.

Maybe if we're talking line fishing, but I'm pretty sure most commercial fishing is done with trawling nets, where everything above a certain size is caught.