DNA fingerprinting salmon
The research arm of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization
is to use DNA fingerprinting to investigate the lifecycle of the
Atlantic salmon, numbers of which have declined dramatically in the
wild over the past 40 years.
The two-year, £4.5million SALSEA-Merge project will see geneticists, ecologists and oceanographers conduct three marine surveys of the distribution and migration of juvenile salmon from southern Europe to the Barents Sea, in the hope of determining exactly what is happening to them while they’re at sea.
Despite the virtual suspension of high-sea salmon fishing and reductions in coastal and net fisheries throughout the British Isles, the number of salmon returning to rivers to spawn are much lower than they were during the 1960s and early ’70s.
Research vessels will use open-ended nets to capture salmon from several areas in the Atlantic. They will then be photographed and have biopsies taken before being released.
‘Analyses of unique genetic codes from biopsies taken from salmon at sea contain a detailed account of that salmon’s genetically inherited preferences – down to the precise tributary of the river in which it was spawned in some cases,’ said Tony Andrews, director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust. ‘These data will enable us to create a migration map that will help us to understand the lives of salmon in the round and, more crucially, to influence the management of stocks much more efficiently and sustainably.’
October 2008
The two-year, £4.5million SALSEA-Merge project will see geneticists, ecologists and oceanographers conduct three marine surveys of the distribution and migration of juvenile salmon from southern Europe to the Barents Sea, in the hope of determining exactly what is happening to them while they’re at sea.
Despite the virtual suspension of high-sea salmon fishing and reductions in coastal and net fisheries throughout the British Isles, the number of salmon returning to rivers to spawn are much lower than they were during the 1960s and early ’70s.
Research vessels will use open-ended nets to capture salmon from several areas in the Atlantic. They will then be photographed and have biopsies taken before being released.
‘Analyses of unique genetic codes from biopsies taken from salmon at sea contain a detailed account of that salmon’s genetically inherited preferences – down to the precise tributary of the river in which it was spawned in some cases,’ said Tony Andrews, director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust. ‘These data will enable us to create a migration map that will help us to understand the lives of salmon in the round and, more crucially, to influence the management of stocks much more efficiently and sustainably.’
October 2008
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