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In situ measurement of coastal ocean movements and survival of juvenile Pacific salmon
Citation
Welch, DW and Melnychuk, MC and Payne, JC and Rechisky, EL and Porter, AD and Jackson, GD and Ward, BR and Vincent, SP and Wood, CC and Semmens, JM, In situ measurement of coastal ocean movements and survival of juvenile Pacific salmon, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, (21) pp. 8708-8713. ISSN 1091-6490 (2011) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2011 National Academy of Sciences
DOI: doi:10.1073/pnas.1014044108
Abstract
Many salmon populations in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
have experienced sharply decreasing returns and high ocean
mortality in the past two decades, with some populations facing
extirpation if current marine survival trends continue. Our inability
to monitor the movements of marine fish or to directly measure
their survival precludes experimental tests of theories concerning
the factors regulating fish populations, and thus limits scientific
advance in many aspects of fisheries management and conservation.
Here we report a large-scale synthesis of survival and movement
rates of free-ranging juvenile salmon across four species, 13
river watersheds, and 44 release groups of salmon smolts (>3,500
fish tagged in total) in rivers and coastal ocean waters, including
an assessment of where mortality predominantly occurs during
the juvenile migration. Of particular importance, our data indicate
that, over the size range of smolts tagged, (i) smolt survival was
not strongly related to size at release, (ii) tag burden did not
appear to strongly reduce the survival of smaller animals, and
(iii) for at least some populations, substantial mortality occurred
much later in the migration and more distant from the river of
origin than generally expected. Our findings thus have implications
for determining where effort should be invested to improve
the accuracy of salmon forecasting, to understand the mechanisms
driving salmon declines, and to predict the impact of climate
change on salmon stocks.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | acoustic arrays Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking mark-recapture |
| Research Division: | Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences |
| Research Group: | Fisheries Sciences |
| Research Field: | Aquatic Ecosystem Studies and Stock Assessment |
| Objective Division: | Environment |
| Objective Group: | Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity |
| Objective Field: | Coastal and Estuarine Flora, Fauna and Biodiversity |
| Author: | Semmens, JM (Associate Professor Jayson Semmens) |
| ID Code: | 72021 |
| Year Published: | 2011 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 60 |
| Deposited By: | Sustainable Marine Research Collaboration |
| Deposited On: | 2011-08-18 |
| Last Modified: | 2012-06-15 |
| Downloads: | 345 View Download Statistics |
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