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Comparative survey of within-river genetic structure in Atlantic salmon; relevance for management and conservation

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Abstract

In wild populations, defining the spatial scale at which management and conservation practices should focus remains challenging. In Atlantic salmon, compelling evidence suggests that genetic structure within rivers occurs, casting doubt on the underlying premise of the river-based management approach for this species. However, no comparisons of within-river genetic structure across different systems have been performed yet to assess the generality of this pattern. We compared the within-river genetic structure of four important salmon rivers in North America and evaluated the extent of genetic differentiation among their main tributaries. We found a hierarchical genetic structure at the river and tributary levels in most water systems, except in the Miramichi where panmixia could not be rejected. In the other cases, genetic differentiation between most tributaries was significant and could be as high as that found between rivers of the same geographical region. More importantly, the extent of genetic differentiation between tributaries varied greatly among water systems, from well differentiated (θST = 0.035) to undifferentiated (θST = −0.0003), underlying the difficulty in generalizing the ubiquity of within-river genetic structure in Atlantic salmon. Thus, this study underlines the importance of evaluating the genetic structure of Atlantic salmon in large water systems on a case by case basis in order to define the most appropriate spatial scale and focal unit for efficient management and conservation actions. The potential consequences of management at an inappropriate spatial scale are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank F. Barnard, A. Gaudreault, J. Labonté and A. Chenel from the Ministère des Ressources Naturelles et de la Faune du Québec (MRNF), as well as G. Chaput from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) for their help in collecting samples for the Moisie, Miramichi and Restigouche water systems. Special thanks to D.C. Christ and the Moisie Salmon Club for their financial support during field work on the Moisie water system. Many thanks to R. Firth and the ‘Corporation de gestion des rivières Matapédia et Patapédia’ for their help in the field for the Restigouche water system. We thank Hydro-Québec for sharing samples and genetic data from the Romaine water system. We also thank K. Giguère, C. Potvin, L. Papillon and V. Albert for technical and laboratory assistance. We finally thank N. Brodeur, the associate editor C. Primmer and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript. Funding for this project was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, collaborative project) to L.B. and J.J.D. and from MRNF. Funding from NSERC financially supported M.D. This study is a contribution to the research programs of Québec-Océan and Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur le Saumon Atlantique (CIRSA).

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  1. Département de Biologie, Université Laval, Quebec, QC, Canada, G1V 0A6

    Mélanie Dionne, Julian J. Dodson & Louis Bernatchez

  2. Direction de l’aménagement de la faune, Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune, 3950, boul. Harvey, Jonquiere, QC, Canada, G7X 8L6

    François Caron

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  1. Mélanie Dionne
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Correspondence to Mélanie Dionne.

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Dionne, M., Caron, F., Dodson, J.J. et al. Comparative survey of within-river genetic structure in Atlantic salmon; relevance for management and conservation. Conserv Genet 10, 869–879 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-008-9647-5

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