Meeting Abstract
Chemoreception provides animals with ecologically relevant information about their environment. Aquatic habitats are complex sensory environments, in which reliance on chemical cues can be advantageous as an organism’s reliance on other sensory modalities may be diminished. Olfactory cues provide animals with information such as the presence of a predator or location of resources such as mates and prey. Olfactory guided behaviors can also be important for habitat recognition and homing behavior(s). Anadromous salmonids exhibit natal homing, where adults return to their natal tributaries in freshwater to spawn. This homing behavior is impressive in both its spatial and temporal scales with adults travelling over hundreds of kilometers after several years at sea. Adult homing is governed by olfactory recognition of chemical cues associated with their home stream that juvenile salmon learn as they migrate downstream. While research has demonstrated that olfactory cues are critical for ensuring successful homing in adults, the identity of these chemical odorants remains largely unknown. We conducted a series of odor conditioning behavioral assays using juvenile Chinook salmon to evaluate the olfactory learning of candidate odorants for imprinting within hatcheries.
