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Stable isotope analyses in otoliths of silver carp: a pilot study in identification of natal sources and stock differences

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Abstract

Silver carp, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, is one of the four major fishes in China for fishing and aquaculture. The Yangtze River and associated waterbodies are important home to silver carp. In this study, we collected 135 otoliths of juvenile silver carp from the two rivers and the Poyang Lake, and analyzed for stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (δ18O and δ13C). The isotopic data and correlation of δ18O versus δ13C showed a clear separation and significant differences (p < 0.001 for both δ13C and δ18O) between otoliths from the Ganjiang River and the Yangtze River at δ18O values around −10‰. The Poyang Lake samples were overlapped with those of the Ganjiang River, but distinctly different from the Yangtze River samples. These isotopic signatures agree well with the previous genetic investigation results that there are marked distinctions between one population in the Ganjiang River and the other in the Yangtze River, and the Poyang Lake population belongs to the Ganjiang River rather than to the Yangtze River. Thus we concluded that stable isotope analyses of otoliths can be effectively used to study natal sources and stock differences of silver carp.

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Acknowledgments

This work could not have been done without support from Huazhong Agricultural University and Makah Fisheries Management. Many dedicated colleagues and scientific staff members helped us during the initiation of the project, particularly for Huanzhang Liu and Jianwei Wang from the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences at Wuhan. We thank graduate students Teng Wang and Haisheng Wang from the College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, for field sampling and scale ageing. We also thank the Stable Isotope Laboratory in the University of Michigan for processing otolith samples. Financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant #31070471) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Jianzhong Shen & Yongwen Gao

  2. Makah Fisheries Management, P.O. Box 115, Neah Bay, WA, 98357, USA

    Yongwen Gao

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  1. Jianzhong Shen
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  2. Yongwen Gao
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Correspondence to Jianzhong Shen.

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Shen, J., Gao, Y. Stable isotope analyses in otoliths of silver carp: a pilot study in identification of natal sources and stock differences. Environ Biol Fish 95, 445–453 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-012-0043-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-012-0043-0

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