Ontogeny shifts and maternal effects on larvae of Chinook salmon

The larval formation of a salmon is crucial to the survival and the journey to be able to reproduce again as an adult. Small shifts in juvenile or larval mortality translate to large shifts in adult population health, with this being said it is vital to study early life history to see in aquaculture what the best foundation for larval life is so that corporations can yield the greatest products.

                                   By studying environmental factors and how genetic factors influence growth is important to aquaculture fish geneticists, in this study they added growth hormones in the egg bound larval stage and it was found that tis combined with favorable conditions resulted in a 15% variation in size. Something like this can be very negative for a farm owner, if someone who raised cows for food had a 15% range of their stock it would be very odd to see and the farmer would most definitely feel that he was cheeped out on and had to expend exactly as many resources as he did on the largest on the smallest.

                                   The study was conducted in a commercial aquaculture facility and it can be known that this played a huge part in being able to control temperature and climate. In aquaculture fish are selectively bred for the most preferred attributes, in this chinook salmon farm fish with very wide backs are chosen because that is a defining part of a female fish that means that she has a high muscle to gut ratio and will yield a high fecundity and protein rich young. If fish are selectively reproduced it means that one can breed select attributes out of existence. In this study it was also found that individuals that choose their own mates offspring exhibit a higher level of juvenile fitness this seems right as the study shows.

                                   It was found in this study that yes genetic and maternal effects play important roles in the larval length and survival of these farmed fishes. A weak mother will not yield as healthy as offspring as a strong one, and the young from the weak will be out preformed in acquiring food resources by the strong in an unparalleled competition. Thus in a farm setting it is useful for farmers to tweak the genes of the breeding fish to select for the strongest footing to ensure that the will be able to run a strong farm.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308954684_Ontogentic_shifts_in_genetic_and_maternal_effects_on_length_and_survival_in_Chinook_salmon_Oncorhynchus_tshawytscha

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2014-0472#.Wh2xQUqnFPY