Meeting Abstract
Within an aquatic environment, olfactory cues are essential for successfully mediating behaviors such as foraging, recognition of conspecifics and avoidance of predators. Furthermore, olfactory cues play an important role in habitat recognition and subsequent site fidelity across a number of species. The spawning migrations of anadromous salmonid fishes are remarkable navigational feats that occur over both significant spatial and temporal scales, with adults returning to their natal streams after several years. Olfactory cues are critical for successful homing. In addition, olfactory imprinting of odors at specific developmental stages appears to be the mechanism through which juvenile fish learn site-specific odors of their home streams. While salmonids can readily detect different classes of compounds at relatively low levels within freshwater ecosystems, natural odorants that may serve as temporally persistent and stable migratory cues remain unidentified. Here we select odorants that not only improve olfactory imprinting but are also cost effective compounds that can be incorporated for hatchery management. By improving olfactory imprinting and thereby reducing straying of hatchery fish, we can reduce negative interactions between hatchery and wild salmonid populations. We test the efficacy of various odorants as potential navigational cues by conducting a series of behavioral assays including testing for innate behavioral responses to select compounds and determining olfactory learning abilities through odor conditioning.
