Fall river Rainbow trout study

[SeanO]

Anyone want to talk about local adaptation of Rainbows?

Pretty cool ongoing study by UCD, Fall River conservancy, CalTrout and CDFW. This will be the most all-encompassing data set or "living laboratory" for trout research. The data will include genome sequence, size of fish, growth rate over time, migration data, and photos by researchers and anglers because of a really cool collaboration between the groups.

As mentioned in the links, we have found significant genetic differences between the fish in the snow-melt/rain-fed tributary and the spring-fed waters.

http://fallriverconservancy.org/2014/06/18/pit-tagging-of-1000-wild-trout-shows-two-distinct-races-of-rainbow-trout/

http://fallriverconservancy.org/2014/12/19/1300-wild-fall-river-trout-tagged-for-monitoring-and-genetic-analysis/

From one of the links...

History of the Wild Trout Monitoring Program:

In 2013, the Fall River Conservancy and it’s partners California Trout, the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife launched the Fall River Wild Trout PIT Tagging Program. To date, the team has tagged and collected genetic analysis on 1300 Fall River rainbow trout with passive integrated responders, or P.I.T. tags, that help researcher’s track the movement of fish throughout the river.

There is also a website where anglers can track where their fish were tagged and how they are growing (not sure if it's live yet...).

Really cool stuff for monitoring and preserving the fish and this very unique watershed!

Best,

[SeanO]

The Fall River trout database...

You would need to have a wand that can read the PIT tags to ID your fish. Researchers, Guides and some landowners have them already. We may get some to loan out to others as well if there is interest in helping the research program.

Best,

http://www.kiene.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10435&d=1424489599

[Darian]

Can't contribute much except to say that the results, so far, are interesting. I'm curious about how two distinctly different populations of Rainbows living closely in the same system spawn separately and avoid mixing genes.... Could it really be as simple as the choice of spawning areas (Gotta be more than that)???

[SeanO]

Could it really be as simple as the choice of spawning areas (Gotta be more than that)???

Darian, no one knows at this point, but we suspect that is the reason. DNA is a powerful driver of the phenotype!

Salmonids adapt to their local rivers over the eons since they have a 'homing' ability to spawn where they were born. It's a really cool adaptation that lets the fish get to productive water. At the same time they can become "locally adapted" to their river conditions which can lead to interesting things like increased spawning times in the spring-fed rivers.

Best,

[johnsquires]

One of my very favorite places to fish. I need to get back more often. You know a fishery is good when you can be so humbled by such very intelligent fish and still think you had a great day.

[Terry Thomas]

Interesting, I wonder if the Spring Creek fish are also a different strain?

[SeanO]

One of our students just finished processing ~1400 new fin clip genetic samples today.

Should have some really cool results soon!


http://youtu.be/loo_tN8oHlw