Assessing Smoltification of Juvenile Spring Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Using Changes in Body Morphology

Abstract

A morphometric measure of smoltification of juvenile spring chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) was developed and evaluated. Fish were collected from hatcheries in Washington and Idaho prior to release and at McNary Dam on the Columbia River during their downstream migration. Distances between 15 anatomical landmarks were digitized from photographs of each fish resulting in 34 morphometric characters for analysis. The canonical variate calculated from a discriminant function based on several principal components was evaluated as a measure of smoltification. The canonical variate was significantly correlated with gill Na+–K+ ATPase activity, a commonly used measure of smoltification. Measuring the morphometric characters and calculating the canonical variate is a relatively simple procedure and can be performed with little harm to the fish. This method of smoltification assessment may be ideally suited to studies in which sacrificing fish is not possible, such as those involving threatened or endangered species, or when access to a laboratory for sample analysis is not available.