Funding period: 2022-2023
Lead: Kristi Miller
Total GRDI funding: $80,914
Thirty-year declines in Chinook, coho, and sockeye salmon productivity have resulted in a crisis in sustainable management of Pacific salmon. Climate change is a key driver, impacting salmon ecosystems that influence salmon survival. A need exists to unravel the cumulative and synergistic interplay between impact factors (e.g., thermal regimes, coastal salinities, oxygen saturation, virus load). An innovative genomic technology developed using GRDI funding, salmon Fit-Chips, is poised to do just that. Salmon Fit-Chips use curated biomarker panels co-activated under specific stressor or disease states, and have been validated to recognize when a salmon is smolt ready, experiencing thermal, osmotic, or hypoxic stress, and/or is in a pre-moribund state. A viral disease panel has also been validated. Optimal application of Fit-Chips involves development of a classifier based on control fish generated through challenge studies, currently only available for Chinook. We propose to develop similar controls for the remaining BC Pacific salmon species.
Publications
- Akbarzadeh A, Selbie DT, Pon LB, Miller KM. 2021. Endangered Cultus Lake sockeye salmon exhibit genomic evidence of hypoxic and thermal stresses while rearing in degrading freshwater lacustrine critical habitat. Conservation Physiology, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coab089
- Deeg CM, Kanzeparova AN, Somov AA, Esenkulova S, Di Cicco E, Kaukinen KH, Tabata A, Ming TJ, Li S, Mordecai G, Schulze A. 2022. Way out there: pathogens, health, and condition of overwintering salmon in the Gulf of Alaska. FACETS:7(1).247-285. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13595
Contact us
For additional information, please contact:
Genomics R&D Initiative
Email: info@grdi-irdg.collaboration.gc.ca