Maintaining a wild phenotype in a conservation hatchery program for Chinook salmon: The effect of managed breeding on early male maturation.

ABSTRACT: In many salmonid species, age and size at maturation is plastic and influenced by the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Hatchery reared salmon often mature at an earlier age and smaller size than wild fish. Modern salmon conservation efforts have focused on managing the level of gene flow between hatchery and natural origin fish to minimize potential genotypic and phenotypic change. In salmonids, maturation probability is dependent on exceeding a genetically set threshold in growth rate and energetic status (and by association, body size) referred to as the probabalisitic maturation reaction norm (PMRN). Over fourteen years, we monitored the frequency of age-2 precocious male maturation (common term: age-2 minijack rate) and the PMRN of natural founder (FNDR), integrat

SUBMITTER: Larsen DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6519831 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature