Estimating the relative fitness of escaped farmed salmon offspring in the wild and modelling the consequences of invasion for wild populations.

ABSTRACT: Throughout their native range, wild Atlantic salmon populations are threatened by hybridization and introgression with escapees from net-pen salmon aquaculture. Although domestic-wild hybrid offspring have shown reduced fitness in laboratory and field experiments, consequential impacts on population abundance and genetic integrity remain difficult to predict in the field, in part because the strength of selection against domestic offspring is often unknown and context-dependent. Here, we follow a single large escape event of farmed Atlantic salmon in southern Newfoundland and monitor changes in the in-river proportions of hybrids and feral individuals over time using genetically based hybrid identification. Over a three-year period following the escape, the overall proportion of wild parr

SUBMITTER: Sylvester EVA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6439497 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature