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11/12/2015 10:19 am  #1


Native genes of Algonquin trout may be restored by natural selection

Whether Algonquin trout populations are "natural" or "native" has been a topic here earlier on... the question being whether historical stocking efforts introduced non-native genes into native populations.

This science is more than a year old but suggests that natural selection may be removing non-native genes, leaving trout populations more like those that inhabited the lakes for thousands of years before artificial stocking began during the 1900s.

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Overfishing, climate change and pollution have reduced fish populations in Canadian lakes and rivers. While hatchery-raised fish could return numbers to normal, they aren't as well adapted to their new environments, and there's been concern that the wild population is "tainted" once it breeds with its domesticated counterparts.

But new research from Concordia, published in the journal Evolutionary Applications, shows that after a few generations of breeding and natural selection, these hybrid fish are genetically as robust as their purely wild forefathers.Fishing for resultsUnder the leadership of biology professor Dylan Fraser, the research team -- which included Concordia graduate student Andrew Harbicht and research scientist Chris Wilson from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry -- headed to Algonquin Provincial Park, a fisherman's paradise of lakes stocked generations ago with hatchery salmon and trout.

The team transplanted combinations of wild, domesticated and hybridized populations of Algonquin Park vbrook trout to new environments. The researchers then compared survival rates and physical characteristics to determine whether hybridization affects a fish's potential to adapt after multiple generations of natural selection in the wild.

It turns out that within five to 11 generations of fish (about 25 to 50 years), the foreign genes introduced into wild populations through hybridization are removed by natural selection. That means fish populations previously bolstered by hatchery stock are, genetically speaking, indistinguishable from purely wild populations.

The implications for conservationFraser, himself an avid fisherman, says these results provide hope for wild populations that were initially negatively affected by human-induced hybridization."If we can stop the incoming flow of foreign genes while maintaining an environment similar to what was there pre-hybridization, wild populations are likely to recover -- possibly in less time than previously thought," he says.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141104111536.htm

Last edited by frozentripper (11/12/2015 10:20 am)

 

11/13/2015 10:57 am  #2


Re: Native genes of Algonquin trout may be restored by natural selection

Cool, thanks. By the way, the direct link to the journal article itself is http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/eva.12199/ , or http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.12199/epdf for pdf.

frozentripper wrote:

Algonquin Provincial Park, a fisherman's paradise of lakes stocked generations ago with hatchery salmon and trout

ugh haha that makes it sound like the park is a completely artificial fishery.

 

11/13/2015 7:54 pm  #3


Re: Native genes of Algonquin trout may be restored by natural selection

I was surprised that the story made it into Science Daily... I suppose they felt it was newsworthy enough. Maybe next is CBC's Quirks and Quarks?

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