Salmon Adaptation Genomics

Abstract

The timing and duration of Pacific salmon spawning in Alaska is critically important for subsistence and commercial users of this food resource. The timing and duration of salmon spawning is shifting to earlier dates and compressing in response to climate warming. Increasingly warmer temperatures and lower stream flows have contributed to earlier and shorter duration runs of spawning salmon and to increasingly hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions. This project tests for phenotypic and genetic differences between female pink salmon that survive to reproduce versus those that do not under the crowded and warm conditions present during salmon spawning.