Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
Salmon Coast Field Station, Simoom Sound, BC, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2022 Mar 28;12(1):4775. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-07464-1.
Parasitic salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) threaten the economic and ecological sustainability of salmon farming, and their evolved resistance to treatment with emamectin benzoate (EMB) has been a major problem for salmon farming in the Atlantic Ocean. In contrast, the Pacific Ocean, where wild salmon are far more abundant, has not seen widespread evolution of EMB-resistant lice. Here, we use EMB bioassays and counts of lice on farms from the Broughton Archipelago, Canada-a core region of salmon farming in the Pacific-to show that EMB sensitivity has dramatically decreased since 2010, concurrent with marked decrease in the field efficacy of EMB treatments. Notably, these bioassay data were not made available through public reporting by industry or by the federal regulator, but rather through Indigenous-led agreements that created a legal obligation for salmon-farming companies to provide data to First Nations. Our results suggest that salmon lice in the Pacific Ocean have recently evolved substantial resistance to EMB, and that salmon-louse outbreaks on Pacific farms will therefore be more difficult to control in the coming years.
寄生性鲑鱼虱（Lepeophtheirus salmonis）威胁着鲑鱼养殖业的经济和生态可持续性，它们对苯甲氨基阿维菌素（EMB）的抗药性进化是大西洋鲑鱼养殖业的一个主要问题。相比之下，太平洋地区的野生鲑鱼数量要多得多，尚未出现 EMB 抗虱的广泛进化。在这里，我们使用 EMB 生物测定和来自加拿大布劳顿群岛（太平洋鲑鱼养殖的核心区域）养殖场的虱计数来表明，自 2010 年以来，EMB 的敏感性显著下降，同时 EMB 处理的田间效果也明显下降。值得注意的是，这些生物测定数据并非通过行业或联邦监管机构的公开报告提供，而是通过原住民领导的协议提供的，这些协议为鲑鱼养殖公司提供了向第一民族提供数据的法律义务。我们的研究结果表明，太平洋鲑鱼虱最近对 EMB 产生了很强的抗药性，因此未来几年，太平洋养殖场的鲑鱼虱爆发将更难控制。
