A PCR for the specific detection of the salmon brain parasite Myxobolus arcticus (Pugachev and Khokhlov, 1979) was developed using primers designed to amplify a 1363 base pair fragment of the small subunit rDNA. The assay did not amplify DNA from 5 other Myxobolus species or from 7 other myxozoan species belonging to 5 other genera. For juvenile sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka (Walbaum) colle...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about Alburnoides remains lacking relative to many other species, resulting in a lack of a systematic position and taxonomic diagnosis. Basic biological information for Alburnoides has been constructed, and it is necessary to understand further and obtain more information about this species. Its phylogenetic relationships are still debated and no molecular data have been us...

Salmon lice, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, are naturally occurring parasites of salmon in sea water. Intensive salmon farming provides better conditions for parasite growth and transmission compared with natural conditions, creating problems for both the salmon farming industry and, under certain conditions, wild salmonids. Salmon lice originating from farms negatively impact wild stocks of salmonid...

Although the homing migration of Pacific salmon is well documented, the swimming behaviour of the returning salmon has been poorly described, principally as a result of the difficulties encountered in monitoring salmon behaviour in the sea. The present study describes the use of a recently developed electronic data logger to obtain simultaneous recordings of the swimming speed, depth, fin-beati...

Pacific salmon abundance along the West Coast of Canada has been in sharp decline since the early 1990s. Declines have been most severe for coho and chinook salmon despite large additions of hatchery-reared fry and smolts. There is particular concern for populations of wild coho because, in addition to low abundance, up to 80% of the juvenile coho in the coastal waters has been identified as be...

1. Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) deliver marine-derived nutrients to the streams in which they spawn and die, and these resource subsidies can increase the abundance of stream biota. In strong contrast, physical disturbance from salmon spawning activity can reduce the abundance of benthic organisms. Previous experimental designs have not established the relative effects of these two contra...

amoebic gill disease (agd) is the most important parasitic disease of atlantic salmon industry inaustralia. atlantic salmon (salmo salar) experimentally infected with neoparamoeba sp. apparently showedagd gross signs on the gill and an amoebic-associated gill pathology. physico-chemical factors of waterduring the experiment were monitored regularly and were approximately constant (temperature: ...

The spatial and temporal structure of spider communities was studied in the clay semi-desert of the north-western Caspian Lowland, western Kazakhstan (49°23' N, 46°47' E). The soils and vegetation are complex, being composed of a mosaic of desert and steppe plant communities. Besides the native associations, there are plantations of different tree species. The ground-dwelling spider assemblages...

Organisms can control movements of nutrients and matter by physically modifying habitat. We examined how an ecosystem engineer, sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), influences seasonal fluxes of sediments, nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) in streams of southwestern Alaska. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether salmon act as net importers or net exporters of matter and nutrients f...

The impact of parasites on hosts is invariably negative when considered in isolation, but may be complex and unexpected in nature. For example, if parasites make hosts less desirable to predators then gains from reduced predation may offset direct costs of being parasitized. We explore these ideas in the context of sea louse infestations on salmon. In Pacific Canada, sea lice can spread from fa...