Impacts of artificial rearing on cisco Coregonus artedi morphology, including pugheadedness

Canadian Journal of Zoology
By: , and 

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Abstract

Cisco (Coregonus artedi Lesueur, 1818) in the Laurentian Great Lakes declined throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Managers are attempting to restore Great Lakes cisco and other coregonines using multiple approaches, including stocking. A potential obstacle to these efforts is that artificially reared coregonines can display deformities and morphological differences compared to wild fish, but the impacts of artificial rearing on cisco morphology are not well understood. We compared morphologies of wild cisco to their artificially reared offspring, including one family that was exposed to three rearing temperature treatments. We found that artificially reared cisco had smaller eyes, shallower bodies, fewer gill rakers, and longer paired fins than their wild parents. We also found that artificially reared cisco were pugheaded, and this result held for another cisco population and rearing facility. Across the temperature treatments we tested, rearing temperatures did not impact the degree of pugheadedness or other morphological differences. Our results have important implications for coregonine restoration efforts. Future work should evaluate whether morphological differences that arise through artificial rearing affect cisco fitness in the wild.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Impacts of artificial rearing on cisco Coregonus artedi morphology, including pugheadedness
Series title Canadian Journal of Zoology
DOI 10.1139/cjz-2023-0195
Volume 102
Issue 7
Year Published 2024
Language English
Publisher Canadian Science Publishing
Contributing office(s) Great Lakes Science Center
Description 14 p.
First page 586
Last page 599
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