Notes 20100428.085028 Conference Salmon, Environmental, Mating

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Environmental, Mating effects on Chinook Salmon, Immune System

• speaker: Leandro Becker
• female mate choice: a female salmon selects a single male to mate with
• artificial selection in hatcheries
• questions: breeding strategies, rearing environments
• does this contribute to the immune performance of the Chinook salmon?
• two lines of fish are produced
  1. traditional: artificial selection, "hatchery fish"
  2. experimental: sexual selection (semi-natural), "channel fish"
• remark: the hypothesis must be that sexual selection assists in immune function.
• environments:
  1. hatchery (plastic) tanks
  2. gravel channels
• produces four study group -- two breeding environments, two rearing environments
• disease challenge: infection with a bacterium (Vibrio anguillarum)
• fish are innoculated by exposure to a tank with live Vibrio
• mortality in a daily basis
• highest mortality by day nine, after day 28, no additional deaths
• at most, less than 30% of the fish died
• result: artificial selection cross artificial tank is the least successful (surprise :/)
• MHC II distribution is affected --
• it looks like the actual question is how fish are capable of identifying mates with complementary immune molecules
• not known, is currently being debated and researched
• speaker remarks that a mate that was previously chosen that's moved to a different location will be found again by its counterpart