Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Aug 30;108(35):14700-4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1101845108. Epub 2011 Aug 22.
The ecological risks of salmon aquaculture have motivated changes to management and policy designed to protect wild salmon populations and habitats in several countries. In Canada, much attention has focused on outbreaks of parasitic copepods, sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis), on farmed and wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, British Columbia. Several recent studies have reached contradictory conclusions on whether the spread of lice from salmon farms affects the productivity of sympatric wild salmon populations. We analyzed recently available sea lice data on farms and spawner-recruit data for pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) salmon populations in the Broughton Archipelago and nearby regions where farms are not present. Our results show that sea lice abundance on farms is negatively associated with productivity of both pink and coho salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. These results reconcile the contradictory findings of previous studies and suggest that management and policy measures designed to protect wild salmon from sea lice should yield conservation and fishery benefits.
水产养殖鲑鱼的生态风险促使一些国家改变管理和政策，以保护野生鲑鱼种群及其栖息地。在加拿大，不列颠哥伦比亚省布劳顿海峡群岛的养殖鲑鱼和野生鲑鱼爆发寄生虫桡足类、海虱（鲑虱属），引起了广泛关注。最近的几项研究对虱从养殖场传播是否影响同域野生鲑鱼种群的生产力得出了相互矛盾的结论。我们分析了布劳顿海峡群岛及其附近无养殖场地区养殖场海虱数据和粉鲑（Oncorhynchus gorbuscha）和银鲑（Oncorhynchus kisutch）繁殖群体的繁殖-补充数据。我们的结果表明，养殖场的海虱丰度与布劳顿海峡群岛粉鲑和银鲑的生产力呈负相关。这些结果调和了先前研究的矛盾发现，并表明旨在保护野生鲑鱼免受海虱侵害的管理和政策措施将产生保护和渔业效益。
