Ecosystem-based sustainable management of chum salmon in Japan’s warming climate

Abstract

Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) play two important roles in the North Pacific ecosystem: as a keystone species and as providers of an ecosystem service that offers human food resources for countries of the North Pacific rim. In a climate that has been rapidly warming since the late 2000 s, the return of Japanese chum salmon (O. keta), most of which reproduce through an artificial hatchery program, has reduced. This study reviews the following issues: 1) the impacts of warming climate on production dynamics and the life history of Pacific salmon; 2) the importance of wild salmon on the sea-terrestrial ecosystem linkage; 3) biological and genetic issues of hatchery-produced salmon such as population dynamics (density-dependent effects) and genetic disturbance (seed transplantation and domestication); and 4) the establishment of ecosystem-based sustainable management for Pacific salmon in the warming climate.