Genomic signatures and correlates of widespread population declines in salmon

S. J. Lehnert (), T. Kess, P. Bentzen, M. P. Kent, S. Lien, J. Gilbey, M. Clément, N. W. Jeffery, R. S. Waples and I. R. Bradbury
Additional contact information
S. J. Lehnert: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre
T. Kess: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre
P. Bentzen: Dalhousie University
M. P. Kent: Norwegian University of Life Sciences
S. Lien: Norwegian University of Life Sciences
J. Gilbey: Marine Scotland Science, Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory
M. Clément: Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland
N. W. Jeffery: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography
R. S. Waples: Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
I. R. Bradbury: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Global losses of biodiversity are occurring at an unprecedented rate, but causes are often unidentified. Genomic data provide an opportunity to isolate drivers of change and even predict future vulnerabilities. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations have declined range-wide, but factors responsible are poorly understood. Here, we reconstruct changes in effective population size (Ne) in recent decades for 172 range-wide populations using a linkage-based method. Across the North Atlantic, Ne has significantly declined in >60% of populations and declines are consistently temperature-associated. We identify significant polygenic associations with decline, involving genomic regions related to metabolic, developmental, and physiological processes. These regions exhibit changes in presumably adaptive diversity in declining populations consistent with contemporary shifts in body size and phenology. Genomic signatures of widespread population decline and associated risk scores allow direct and potentially predictive links between population fitness and genotype, highlighting the power of genomic resources to assess population vulnerability.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10972-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10972-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10972-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().