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Title: Isotopes and genes reveal freshwater origins of Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha aggregations in California’s coastal ocean

Journal Article · · Marine Ecology - Progress Series
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11623· OSTI ID:1357371
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7]
  1. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Fisheries Ecology Division; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  2. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Fisheries Ecology Division; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Ocean Sciences
  3. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Fisheries Ecology Division; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Inst. of Marine Sciences
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science
  5. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science
  6. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States). Glenn T. Seaborg Inst.
  7. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
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The ability of salmon to navigate from the ocean back to their river of origin to spawn acts to reinforce local adaptation and maintenance of unique and heritable traits among salmon populations. Here, the extent to which Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha from the same freshwater breeding groups associate together in the ocean at regional and smaller-scale aggregations prior to homeward migration is evaluated. Natural variation in salmon otolith daily growth bands, strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr), and microsatellite DNA were used as intrinsic tags to link the distributions of fish caught in the ocean with their freshwater origins. Adults were caught from vessels by hook and line in small aggregations (7-18 ind.) at the same geographic location (1-24 km of coastline) and time (4-36 h) from 3 ocean regions along central California, USA. Salmon caught together in aggregations were from the same genetic group, and to a lesser extent, of the same natal origin (individual rivers or hatcheries). However, at regional scales, adult salmon mixed. Central Valley winter-run Chinook salmon caught together in the ocean varied in the duration of freshwater rearing for up to 2-3 mo prior to seaward migration, suggesting associations within the group were not established in freshwater or maintained over the lifetime of the fish. Our findings are consistent with coarser information indicating stocks are distributed differently in time and space, but larger sample sizes are required to evaluate the consistency of patterns at smaller spatial scales. This study uncovers freshwater associations prior to homeward migration, a principle and undocumented prerequisite of the collective navigation hypothesis.

Research Organization:
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Santa Cruz, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries (United States); Univ. of California (United States); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (United States); David and Lucile Packard Foundation (United States)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1357371
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-698547-DRAFT
Journal Information:
Marine Ecology - Progress Series, Vol. 548; ISSN 0171-8630
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 11 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Cited By (2)

Strontium isotopes reveal ephemeral streams used for spawning and rearing by an imperilled potamodromous cyprinid Clear Lake hitch Lavinia exilicauda chi journal January 2019
Fishery collapse, recovery, and the cryptic decline of wild salmon on a major California river journal November 2018

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Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
winter-run Chinook salmon
schooling
otolith microchemistry
strontium
navigation