Drivers of eco-evolutionary dynamics in model systems - the role of harvest mortality and intraspecific competition

Populations exist under a range of selective pressures, and the relative importance of natural (e.g. environmental change) and anthropogenic pressures (e.g. fishing mortality) remains hotly contested. Such external pressures can affect a population directly – for example when environmental change reduces the number of territories available in a population, and indirectly – when fishing pressure alters the gene frequencies for slow growth to large maturation size in a population. Understanding how populations the individuals within them, are likely to change in the face of growing pressures, both environmental and anthropogenic, remains of utmost importance if we are to manage populations for the future, particularly in the context of harvesting. In this thesis, I utilise model systems to explore the roles of competition and harvesting in regulating population growth, structure and phenotypic variation of individuals. As well as addressing broad theoretical questions of how individuals adapt to differing environmental pressures, and how such adaptation can feedback to population dynamics - I also address the outcomes of real world pressures on populations and in chapter IV offer a potential solution to one of those pressures, specifically fishing. This thesis therefore represents an exciting addition, not only to the field of eco-evolutionary dynamics but also has implications for the future management of exploited populations