The influence of harvesting pressure on evolving food webs
Harvesting, especially in fisheries, causes drastic ecosystem changes, such as the simplification of trophic structure in food webs. While the demographic effects of harvesting have been at the focus of earlier research, harvesting can also cause population traits to evolve. So far, however, few studies have incorporated both the demographic and the evolutionary dimensions of harvesting. Accordingly, the main goal of my project is to study how evolving food webs respond to harvesting. To do so, I study the influence of different harvesting regimes and pressures on food webs built from simple evolutionary and ecological rules based on body size. Determining how harvesting, multi-trophic interactions, and adaptive dynamics interact will help in understanding the impact of fisheries on ecosystems.