An investigation of the induction of precocious sexual maturity in juvenile pink salmon Oncorhynchus gorbuscha ...

• Main Author: Funk, James D.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: Oncorhynchus gorbuscha; Pink salmon
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0093293; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0093293

This study was undertaken to determine whether the gonads of pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), could be stimulated with exogenous hormones to reproductive maturity one year earlier than normal. This procedure, if successful, could be used as a method for repopulating ‘off’ year cycles of pink salmon in numerous rivers in British Columbia and Washington. In the juvenile males, complete sexual maturity was attained by September in the year of hatching with thrice-weekly treatments of 10.0 micrograms and of 1.0 micrograms salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) gonadotropin per gram body weight. Histological examination of the precociously mature testes, and comparison with testes from uninjected controls repealed that the time of onset of the mitotic division of spermatogonia to form the primary spermatocyte, and the process of active spermatogenesis were accelerated. At sexual maturity, a scattering of localizations of ∆5-3ß hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activity was observed which corresponded to the ...