RESEARCH ARTICLE


Turbidity of Landlocked Fall Chinook Salmon Ovarian Fluid in Relation to Egg Survival



Patrick A. Nero, Michael E. Barnes*, Matthew M. Wipf
State Fish Hatchery, South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, 19619 Trout Loop, Spearfish, South Dakota 57783, USA.

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2013
Volume: 6
First Page: 75
Last Page: 77
Publisher Id: TOFISHSJ-6-75
DOI: 10.2174/1874401X01306010075

Article History:

Received Date: 24/06/2013
Revision Received Date: 16/09/2013
Acceptance Date: 20/09/2013
Electronic publication date: 30/10/2013
Collection year: 2013

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© 2013 Nero et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the State Fish Hatchery, South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, 19619 Trout Loop, Spearfish, South Dakota 57783, USA; Tel: (605) 642-6920, Fax: (605) 642-6921; E-mail: Mike.Barnes@state.sd.us


Abstract

This study evaluated the use of ovarian fluid turbidity as a potential indicator of landlocked fall Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha egg survival. A total of 21 females were spawned, with nine of the spawns containing between one and ten broken eggs per spawn. Ovarian fluid turbidity ranged from 55.1 to 159 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU), and egg survival to the eyed-stage of egg development ranged from 0 to 68%. There was no significant correlation between ovarian fluid turbidity and egg survival. Mean survival of eggs from the spawns containing broken eggs was 12.3%, which was significantly lower than the 32.9% mean survival from spawns without broken eggs. These results indicate ovarian fluid turbidity cannot be used to predict egg survival in spawns of landlocked fall Chinook Salmon, but the presence of even a small number of broken eggs may be indicative of poor survival to the eyed-egg stage of development.

Keywords: Chinook Salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, turbidity, spawning, ovarian fluid, eggs.