5SOURCES OF GROWTH RATE VARIATION IN INDIVIDUAL ATLANTIC SALMON PARR
Growth rate is a highly plastic trait in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Smolt ages can range from one to six among rivers (Metcalfe and Thorpe, 1990) and depending on dominance interactions, life history tactic and possibly genetics, growth rate can also vary substantially within a river. Because in...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.602.618 http://www-heb.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/congress/2000/Papers/variationpdf/letcher.pdf |
| Summary: | Growth rate is a highly plastic trait in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Smolt ages can range from one to six among rivers (Metcalfe and Thorpe, 1990) and depending on dominance interactions, life history tactic and possibly genetics, growth rate can also vary substantially within a river. Because interactions among fish are often size dependent (Mill r et al. 1988), and smolt age in salmonids is related to growth rate (Thorpe, 1986; Duston and Saunders, 1997) understanding the relative importance of factors governing growth rates should lead to increased understanding of individual survival and ultimately population dynamics. Our aim is to describe sources of variation in juvenile Atlantic salmon growth rates based on three years of data on individually-tagged fish from a stream in Massachusetts, USA. We describe variation in growth due to the year, season, life history tactic and present preliminary data on growth rate variation of fish from different families (single mother-father pair). Our study site was a 1-km stretch of the West Brook, in Whately, MA, a second order stream with an average width of 4.8 m. The study site was divided into 47 |
|---|