Genetic implications of hatchery rearing in Atlantic salmon: effects of rearing environment on genetic composition

In an experiment to investigate genetic consequences of hatchery rearing in salmon, allozyme variation at five polymorphic loci was examined in Atlantic salmon of known initial genetic composition, which were reared throughout freshwater life in the hatchery or stocked into the wild as swim‐up fry....

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Fish Biology
Main Author: Crozier, W. W.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 1998
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8649.1998.tb00600.x
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1095-8649.1998.tb00600.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1095-8649.1998.tb00600.x
Description
Summary:In an experiment to investigate genetic consequences of hatchery rearing in salmon, allozyme variation at five polymorphic loci was examined in Atlantic salmon of known initial genetic composition, which were reared throughout freshwater life in the hatchery or stocked into the wild as swim‐up fry. The genetic composition of the juveniles in the hatchery remained homogeneous from fertilization up to stocking, and from stocking to 2+ in the wild, however, those remaining at the hatchery developed genetic differences among smolting and nonsmolting 1+ parr. These differences were attributed to conditions leading to early smolting at 1+ among the hatchery fish, with 1+ smolts diverging from the gene pool from which they were derived, whereas those stocked into the wild did not smolt until a year later and retained the original genetic composition. The results are discussed in relation to hatchery rearing of salmon and implications for the use of reared fish in stocking and enhancement programmes.