Freshwater fish at the top of the food chain evolve more slowly
For fishermen and anglers, the largemouth bass is a favorite freshwater fish with an appetite for minnows. A new study finds that once they evolved to eat other fish, largemouth bass and fellow fish-feeders remained relatively unchanged compared with their insect- and snail-eating cousins. NESCent postdoc Brian O'Meara and colleagues report that as these fishes became top predators in aquatic ecosystems, natural selection put the brakes on evolution.
[
more ]
