Anthropogenic habitat alteration leads to rapid loss of adaptive variation and restoration potential in wild salmon populations.

ABSTRACT: Phenotypic variation is critical for the long-term persistence of species and populations. Anthropogenic activities have caused substantial shifts and reductions in phenotypic variation across diverse taxa, but the underlying mechanism(s) (i.e., phenotypic plasticity and/or genetic evolution) and long-term consequences (e.g., ability to recover phenotypic variation) are unclear. Here we investigate the widespread and dramatic changes in adult migration characteristics of wild Chinook salmon caused by dam construction and other anthropogenic activities. Strikingly, we find an extremely robust association between migration phenotype (i.e., spring-run or fall-run) and a single locus, and that the rapid phenotypic shift observed after a recent dam construction is explained by dramatic allele f

SUBMITTER: Thompson TQ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6320526 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature