Dataset Information

Effects of parasites from salmon farms on productivity of wild salmon.

ABSTRACT: The ecological risks of salmon aquaculture have motivated changes to management and policy designed to protect wild salmon populations and habitats in several countries. In Canada, much attention has focused on outbreaks of parasitic copepods, sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis), on farmed and wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, British Columbia. Several recent studies have reached contradictory conclusions on whether the spread of lice from salmon farms affects the productivity of sympatric wild salmon populations. We analyzed recently available sea lice data on farms and spawner-recruit data for pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) salmon populations in the Broughton Archipelago and nearby regions where farms are not present. Our results show that sea lice abundance on farms is negatively associated with productivity of both pink and coho salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. These results reconcile the contradictory findings of previous studies and suggest that management and policy measures designed to protect wild salmon from sea lice should yield conservation and fishery benefits.

SUBMITTER: Krkosek M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3167527 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effects of parasites from salmon farms on productivity of wild salmon.

Krkosek Martin M Connors Brendan M BM Morton Alexandra A Lewis Mark A MA Dill Lawrence M LM Hilborn Ray R

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20110822 35

The ecological risks of salmon aquaculture have motivated changes to management and policy designed to protect wild salmon populations and habitats in several countries. In Canada, much attention has focused on outbreaks of parasitic copepods, sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis), on farmed and wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, British Columbia. Several recent studies have reached contradictory conclusions on whether the spread of lice from salmon farms affects the productivity of sympatri ...[more]

PMID: 21873246

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Project description:Anthropogenic changes to the environment challenge animal populations to adapt to new conditions and unique threats. While the study of adaptation has focused on genetic variation, epigenetic mechanisms may also be important. DNA methylation is sensitive to environmental stressors, such as parasites and pesticides, which may affect gene expression and phenotype. We studied the effects of an invasive ectoparasite, Philornis downsi, on DNA methylation of Galápagos mockingbirds (Mimus parvulus). We used the insecticide permethrin to manipulate P. downsi presence in nests of free-living mockingbirds and tested for effects of parasitism on nestling mockingbirds using epiGBS, a reduced-representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) approach. To distinguish the confounding effects of insecticide exposure, we conducted a matching experiment exposing captive nestling zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to permethrin. We used zebra finches because they were the closest model organism to mockingbirds that we could breed in controlled conditions. We identified a limited number of differentially methylated cytosines (DMCs) in parasitized versus nonparasitized mockingbirds, but the number was not more than expected by chance. In contrast, we saw clear effects of permethrin on methylation in captive zebra finches. DMCs in zebra finches paralleled documented effects of permethrin exposure on vertebrate cellular signaling and endocrine function. Our results from captive birds indicate a role for epigenetic processes in mediating sublethal nontarget effects of pyrethroid exposure in vertebrates. Environmental conditions in the field were more variable than the laboratory, which may have made effects of both parasitism and permethrin harder to detect in mockingbirds. RRBS approaches such as epiGBS may be a cost-effective way to characterize genome-wide methylation profiles. However, our results indicate that ecological epigenetic studies in natural populations should consider the number of cytosines interrogated and the depth of sequencing in order to have adequate power to detect small and variable effects.

Dataset Information

Effects of parasites from salmon farms on productivity of wild salmon.

Publications

Effects of parasites from salmon farms on productivity of wild salmon.

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