Abstract
—Using the example of chum salmon Oncorhynchus keta in the Amur zoogeographic province, we review the principle of subdividing the species into population groups. On the basis of zoogeographic zoning and biological boundaries of chum salmon groups defined by the spawning areas, taking into account the distribution, migration, and reproduction, as well as estimates of their differentiation using microsatellite DNA markers, we identified eight ecogeographic units in the Amur province. In the Amur zoogeographic region of this province, these included the summer chum salmon of the Amur-Amgun ecoregion and the autumn chum salmon of the Lower Amur (Amur-Amgun and Amur-Ussuri ecoregions); in the Shantar zoogeographic region of the province, the Uda-Tugur and Ulban groups; in the Sakhalin part of the Amur province, groups from the northwestern and northeastern Sakhalin, as well as summer and autumn chum salmon from the Poronai River. These ecogeographic units can be considered as basic spawning management units of chum salmon for this part of the species distribution range.
Highlights
To develop plans for the management of natural biological resources, namely of their productivity, reproduction, harvesting, and protection, it is necessary to identify management units of the relevant species as population groups living in certain parts of the species distribution range
Within the Amur zoogeographic province, we identify four continental ecogeographic units (EGUs) of chum salmon: Amur-Amgun summer EGU, Lower Amur autumn EGU, Uda-Tugur EGU, and, preliminarily, Ulban EGU
Salmon from the Amur river basin and chum salmon from the Langry River, despite the geographical proximity of the mouths of these rivers, which could hypothetically lead to the exchange of gene flows between them
Summary
To develop plans for the management of natural biological resources, namely of their productivity, reproduction, harvesting, and protection, it is necessary to identify management units of the relevant species as population groups living in certain parts of the species distribution range. It is necessary to identify the units of the species, since over the past two decades, the release of farm-produced chum salmon juveniles has more than doubled (Leman et al, 2015); at the same time, unsystematic transfer of chum salmon is not uncommon, including transfer from rivers very distant from the place of release of juveniles. It is important to establish restrictions on the transfer of fertilized eggs between fish farms, on the distribution of catch rates, and regulation of reproduction, taking into account the population structure of the species and requirements for reproduction efficiency of both farm-produced and wild chum salmon (Zhivotovsky and Smirnov, 2018). Within the Russian Far East, six to seven main regional spawning groups of chum salmon are distinguished, one of which is represented by the Amur River basin (Karpenko and Rassadnikov, 2004). An important special feature of the chum salmon, like other Pacific salmon, is the presence of temporal forms, which were first identified in the Amur chum salmon: summer and autumn (spring and winter races according to: Berg, 1934), which, in the areas inhabited by both, reproduce sympatrically in the same river basins, but on different types of spawning grounds (Birman, 1954; Volobuev et al, 1990; Rosly, 2002; Volobuev and Marchenko, 2011)
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