Stephen C. Riley
Christopher M. Holbrook
Michael J. Hansen
Roger A. Bergstedt
Charles R. Bronte
Ji He
Charles C. Krueger
Thomas Binder
2016
<p><span>Fidelity to high-quality spawning sites helps ensure that adults repeatedly spawn at sites that maximize reproductive success. Fidelity is also an important behavioural characteristic to consider when hatchery-reared individuals are stocked for species restoration, because artificial rearing environments may interfere with cues that guide appropriate spawning site selection. Acoustic telemetry was used in conjunction with Cormack–Jolly–Seber capture–recapture models to compare degree of spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (</span><i>Salvelinus namaycush</i><span>) in northern Lake Huron. Annual survival was estimated to be between 77% and 81% and did not differ among wild and hatchery males and females. Site fidelity estimates were high in both wild and hatchery-reared lake trout (ranging from 0.78 to 0.94, depending on group and time filter), but were slightly lower in hatchery-reared fish than in wild fish. The ecological implication of the small difference in site fidelity between wild and hatchery-reared lake trout is unclear, but similarities in estimates suggest that many hatchery-reared fish use similar spawning sites to wild fish and that most return to those sites annually for spawning.</span></p>
application/pdf
10.1139/cjfas-2015-0175
en
NRC Research Press
Spawning site fidelity of wild and hatchery lake trout (<i>Salvelinus namaycush</i>) in northern Lake Huron
article