THE EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL LEVELS OF FRESHWATER CONTAMINANTS ON JUVENILE ATLANTIC SALMON (Salmo salar L.): IMPLICATIONS FOR MARINE SURVIVAL

• Main Authors: Nicola Lower, Andy Moore
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atlantic salmon; North Atlantic; Salmo salar
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.513.4996; http://www-heb.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/congress/2002/Toxicol/lower.pdf

There is increasing concern over the continuing decline of wild stocks of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, throughout the North Atlantic, and the impact on commercial and recreational fisheries. Recent research has demonstrated that the freshwater and marine environments cannot be considered in isolation and that conditions within the freshwater zone experienced by Atlantic salmon may be critical to their subsequent survival in the sea. In particular, exposure of juvenile salmon to a range of sub-lethal concentrations of freshwater contaminants, such as pesticides, may operate to reduce survival in fish once they have migrated to sea. Environmental levels of a wide range of pesticides have previously been shown to deleteriously effect Atlantic salmon reproduction and fecundity, by disrupting pheromone-mediated spawning and reducing fertilisation rates (Moore and Lower, 2001; Moore and Waring, 2001). However, the effects of such exposure on other critical life history stages, for example developing embryos and the parr-smolt transformation, and the subsequent