The genetic approach for assessing sea trout stock enhancement efficiency – An example from the Vistula River

Abstract

Fisheries Institute in Olsztyn, Poland Citation: W¹s-Barcz A., Bernaoe R., Wenne R. 2017 -The genetic approach for assessing sea trout stock enhancement efficiency -An example from the Vistula River -Arch. Abstract. Many countries in the Baltic Sea basin have initiated enhancement programs for Baltic migratory sea trout, Salmo trutta L., to compensate for losses stemming from anthropogenic pressure that has resulted in the declining population abundance of this species. Regular stock enhancement has been conducted in Poland since the 1960s. Currently, over one million sea trout smolts are released into Polish rivers annually. In most Baltic countries, including Poland, stock enhancement depends on hatcheries producing material using spawners caught in native rivers. However, increasing difficulty obtaining spawners in recent years in Poland has meant that stock enhancement performed in the Vistula has been done largely with material obtained from broodstocks. Simultaneously, there is a lack of information regarding the proportion of wild and cultured sea trout in this river basin. This paper is a review of methods applied to identify individuals from natural and artificial sea trout spawning in rivers, and it proposes using genetic techniques as an alternative to traditional marking methods. A set of 13 microsatellite loci are proposed that are characterized by high selectivity. Using negative controls while simulating the assignment of parental pairs revealed that the number of loci in the set was highly significant and should not be reduced. This method could be useful in the proposed assessment of the proportions of wild and cultured fish in Polish rivers.

Parentage-based tagging and parentage analyses of stocked sea trout in Vistula River commercial catches

“…Herein, the data included all genotypes of all parents used in artificial spawning, and the number of offspring was large (> 100). Analyses must also enough polymorphic loci; this requirement was also met in the present work (Wąs-Barcz et al 2017 ). and three complementary methods were applied and compared, making calculations more reliable.…”

“…Details regarding locus sources, concentrations and labelling of primers are provided in Wąs and Bernaś ( 2016 ), with the exception of Ssa407 which was from Cairney et al ( 2000 ); primer concentration was 0.4 pmol/μl, and fluorescent labelling was PET. The effectiveness of applied multiplex with 13 microsatellite loci in parentage analysis was previously tested using negative control and was found useful for Polish populations of sea trout (Wąs-Barcz et al 2017 ).…”

“…These methods are based on identification of individual genotypes and their variability (Estoup et al 1998 ). The usefulness of genetic methods in analysing parentage has been confirmed for many species including Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, Atlantic cod, carp and brown trout (Norris and Cunningham 2004 ; Fishback et al 2002 ; Vandeputte et al 2004 ; Herlin et al 2007 ; Wąs-Barcz et al 2017 ).…”