Phenotypic Sorting of Pink Salmon Hatchery Strays May Alleviate Adverse Impacts of Reduced Variation in Fitness-Associated Traits.

ABSTRACT: Maladapted immigrants may reduce wild population productivity and resilience, depending on the degree of fitness mismatch between dispersers and locals. Thus, domesticated individuals escaping into wild populations is a key conservation concern. In Prince William Sound, Alaska, over 700 million pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) are released annually from hatcheries, providing a natural experiment to characterize the mechanisms underlying impacts to wild populations. Using a dataset of > 200,000 pink salmon sampled from 30 populations over 8 years, we detected significant body size and phenological differences between hatchery- and wild-origin spawners, likely driven by competitive differences during maturation and broodstock selection practices. Variation in traits was reduced in

SUBMITTER: McMahon J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11711052 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature