The Unrepentant Selectionist's Guide to Salmonid Management 1. the Prevalence of Selection in Salmonid Management

Natural selection is the engine of adaptive evolutionary change.  Although local adaptation has long been a central theme in salmonid conservation, ongoing natural selection has taken much longer to become appreciated as a practical concern in species management and recovery programs.  This lag is likely due to perceptions that evolutionary processes are slow relative to the ecological dynamics that often preoccupy management and recovery efforts, and that phenotypic plasticity is often a more immediate concern when it comes to trait variation.  We suggest that these perceptions reflect an artificial subdivision of a broader eco-phenotypic dynamic into ecological, evolutionary and plastic components that should actually be considered in combination.   We use this framework, and associated empirical examples, to show how ongoing selection is not only pervasive in salmonid management but of practical relevance to management goals.  In the second of our paired presentations, we consider a toolbox of approaches to quantify selection within conservation and management contexts as well as its relative importance to population dynamics and persistence.