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Title: Managed Metapopulations: Do Salmon Hatchery ‘Sources’ Lead to In-River ‘Sinks’ in Conservation?

Journal Article · · PLoS ONE
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6]
  1. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Inst. of Marine Sciences
  2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States). Chemical Sciences Division
  3. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Stockton, CA (United States). Anadromous Fish Restoration Program
  4. East Bay Municipal Utility District, Lodi, CA (United States)
  5. National Marine Fisheries Service, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Southwest Fisheries Science Center
  6. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences
+ Show Author Affiliations

Maintaining viable populations of salmon in the wild is a primary goal for many conservation and recovery programs. The frequency and extent of connectivity among natal sources defines the demographic and genetic boundaries of a population. Yet, the role that immigration of hatchery-produced adults may play in altering population dynamics and fitness of natural populations remains largely unquantified. Quantifying, whether natural populations are self-sustaining, functions as sources (population growth rate in the absence of dispersal, λ>1), or as sinks (λ<1) can be obscured by an inability to identify immigrants. In this study we use a new isotopic approach to demonstrate that a natural spawning population of Chinook salmon, (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) considered relatively healthy, represents a sink population when the contribution of hatchery immigrants is taken into consideration. We retrieved sulfur isotopes (34S/32S, referred to as δ34S) in adult Chinook salmon otoliths (ear bones) that were deposited during their early life history as juveniles to determine whether individuals were produced in hatcheries or naturally in rivers. Our results show that only 10.3% (CI=5.5 to 18.1%) of adults spawning in the river had otolith δ34S values less than 8.5‰, which is characteristic of naturally produced salmon. When considering the total return to the watershed (total fish in river and hatchery), we estimate that 90.7 to 99.3% (CI) of returning adults were produced in a hatchery (best estimate=95.9%). When population growth rate of the natural population was modeled to account for the contribution of previously unidentified hatchery immigrants, we found that hatchery-produced fish caused the false appearance of positive population growth. In conclusion, these findings highlight the potential dangers in ignoring source-sink dynamics in recovering natural populations, and question the extent to which declines in natural salmon populations are undetected by monitoring programs.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1396206
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-426609
Journal Information:
PLoS ONE, Vol. 7, Issue 2; ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 23 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (9)

Eight Decades of Hatchery Salmon Releases in the California Central Valley: Factors Influencing Straying and Resilience journal June 2019
Survival of Juvenile Fall-Run Chinook Salmon through the San Joaquin River Delta, California, 2010-2015 journal May 2018
Eco-evolutionary dynamics, density-dependent dispersal and collective behaviour: implications for salmon metapopulation robustness journal March 2018
Supportive breeders of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar have reduced fitness in nature journal June 2019
The use of otolith chemistry to characterize diadromous migrations journal July 2012
Weakening portfolio effect strength in a hatchery-supplemented Chinook salmon population complex journal December 2015
Fishery collapse, recovery, and the cryptic decline of wild salmon on a major California river journal November 2018
Reconstructing the Migratory Behavior and Long-Term Survivorship of Juvenile Chinook Salmon under Contrasting Hydrologic Regimes journal May 2015
Potential Factors Affecting Survival Differ by Run-Timing and Location: Linear Mixed-Effects Models of Pacific Salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) in the Klamath River, California journal May 2014

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