Sockeye salmon natural selection against large bodies. Populations with higher levels of predation tend to evolve smaller body size. Without the threat of predation, salmon that breed early in the season live longer than those that breed late in the season. Other ecological factors like stranding effect select for smaller body size in sockeye salmon when present in a habitat. Stranding is when salmon swim into dry land or shallow water during their migration for spawning and die from suffocation. In fact, studies show that the Sockeye salmon with the largest bodies are most susceptible to stranding mortality. Reproduction is marked by
Environmental issues with salmon 59 years of catch and escapement data of Bristol Bay sockeye to determine age and size at maturity trends attributable to the selectivity of commercial gillnet harvests. The study found that the larger females (>550 mm) of all age classes were most susceptible to harvest. The study suggests that smaller, younger fish were more likely to successfully traverse the gillnet fishery and reproduce than the larger fish. The study also found that the average length of sockeye harvested from 1946–2005 was 8 mm larger than the sockeye who escaped the gillnet fishery to spawn, reducing the fecundity of the average