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Occurrence of wild chum salmon fry in the surf zone, and spawning and emergence timing in the adjacent nonstocked river in Niigata Prefecture, Japan

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Abstract

Sustainable conservation management of chum salmon in Japan requires ecological information on wild fish. This study investigated the spawning timing in a nonstocked river and the occurrence of wild fry in a surf zone in Niigata Prefecture. Most redds were observed from mid-October to mid-December on riverbeds having stream water of variable but cold temperatures above 5.4 °C. Chum salmon fry (< 41 mm), identified as wild based on comparison with the expected minimum size of hatchery fish (> 41.2 mm), were collected at the surf zone generally from early March to early May when the sea surface temperature (SST) was 7.4−17.5 °C. This period largely matched the predicted time of emergence based on the surveyed river cumulative water temperature. A generalized linear model predicted that the probability of occurrence would decrease as SST increased, being 42.5% even when SST was 15 °C. Hatchery fish are stocked by late March in Niigata Prefecture. Our results reveal that wild chum salmon fry at the southern limits of their distribution, which is affected by the Tsushima Warm Current, enter the sea when SST is relatively high, mainly from March to April, and even in May, 2 months after the end of hatchery stocking.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr. Toru Nagasawa (Fisheries Resources Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency) for valuable comments and encouragement on an earlier draft of the paper. We thank Dr. Kunihiro Fujiwara (Demersal Fish Resources Division, Fisheries Stock Assessment Center, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency), Masato Haga, Yukiharu Goda, and Yasuaki Yokoda (Salmon Research Department, Fisheries Resources Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency), who assisted at various times with fieldwork. We also thank Yasuyuki Miyauchi (Salmon Research Department, Fisheries Resources Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency) for providing data on size of hatchery fish. The staff of the Kitakanbara Branch of the Fishery Cooperative Association of Niigata supported us during this investigation. We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing. Finally, we are particularly grateful for the constructive comments made by Dr. Koh Hasegawa (editor of Fisheries Science) and two anonymous reviewers that further improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Demersal Fish Resources Division, Fisheries Stock Assessment Center, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, 1-5939-22, Suido-cho, Chuo-ku, Niigata, 951-8121, Japan

    Masaya Iida & Yuta Yagi

  2. Obama Field Station, Fisheries Technology Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Japan, 26, Tomari, Obama, Fukui, 917-0117, Japan

    Tomoaki Iseki

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  1. Masaya Iida
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Correspondence to Masaya Iida.

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Iida, M., Yagi, Y. & Iseki, T. Occurrence of wild chum salmon fry in the surf zone, and spawning and emergence timing in the adjacent nonstocked river in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Fish Sci 87, 549–557 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12562-021-01535-4

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