Abstract
Salmonid fish often experience size-selective mortality when descending the river (i.e., seaward migration). However, it is unknown whether size-selective mortality is specific to this life history (i.e., migrants), or is shared by an alternative life history (i.e., residents). In this study, we investigated the size-dependent mortality patterns of masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou) migrants and residents during the migration period (i.e., April to June) in the Horonai River, northern Japan. By conducting an individual-based study using PIT tags and antennas, we show that larger migrants more likely survived the seaward migration than smaller migrants, but size-dependent survival was not detected in river residents during the same period. These results suggest that size-selective mortality is specific to the river-descending migrants in masu salmon in their seaward migration period. We attribute this finding to the presence of piscivorous fishes (e.g., brown trout Salmo trutta) which occupy the migration corridor and consume masu salmon migrants, whereas such piscivorous fish do not occur in the river section farther upstream inhabited by residents.
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Data Availability
Raw data are available by request from the corresponding author.
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All codes are available by request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Jiro Uchida, Rin Uchida, Atsushi Okuda, Yuichi Matsuoka, Shoji Kumikawa, Hiroshi Sugiyama, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Hisanori Okamiya, Kotaro Takai, Susumu Igarashi, and Tomoaki Sato for the logistical support in the fieldwork. We also thank Chiharu Furusawa for providing useful information on fish distributions in the Horonai River. Karen Cogliati and two anonymous reviewers provided constructive comments that improved an earlier version of this manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by a JSPS KAKENHI grant to OK (17H03725 and 20K21439), the Research Council of Norway project Global trout (no 287438) to KM, and a Faculty Fellow grant by the Colorado Water Center to YK.
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RF, KM, YK, and OK conceived the ideas. All authors designed the methodology and collected and analyzed the data. RF, YK, and OK led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Futamura, R., Morita, K., Kanno, Y. et al. Size-selective mortality occurs in smolts during a seaward migration, but not in river residents, in masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou). Environ Biol Fish 105, 1833–1843 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-022-01213-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-022-01213-z