Risk assessments have identified prey limitation as one of the strongest risk factors for juvenile salmon migration survival under climate change. In British Columbia, Canada, juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) may experience prolonged periods of food deprivation during their marine entry and first marine winter. In this study we conducted a lab-based food deprivation and refeeding experiment to assess the physiological consequences of starvation and
identify transcriptional responses to develop mRNA-based biomarkers for food limitation in the gill of juvenile Chinook salmon. Throughout the experiment, fish were held at both summer (16oC; marine entry) and winter (8oC; overwintering) temperatures and were sampled at least every 2 weeks collecting physiological data (condition factor, hepatosomatic index, morphometrics) as well as liver and gill tissue for RNA-sequencing. As expected, both food-deprivation treatments demonstrated significant differences from their fed counterparts with decreases in condition factor and hepatosomatic index with 14 to 28 days, respectively. The 16oC acclimation treatment was the first to reach a starvation endpoint (10% mortality) by 35 days,
with the 8oC treatment persisting until 56 days (20% reduced condition factor). During refeeding, condition factor returned rapidly in both acclimation treatments, 9-12 days post feed introduction. Further, hepatosomatic index recovered within 3 days and increased up to 2.5-fold when compared to unfasted counterparts by days 12-21 of the refeeding process. Conserved transcriptional responses between 8oC and 16oC treatments will be discussed in the context ofpathways modified by starvation, and candidate biomarkers for nonlethal screening in wild
juvenile Chinook salmon.

 Food deprivation, physiological impacts, and associated transcriptional responses in juvenile Chinook salmon

Variation is inherent and foundational to all life on earth. Yet researchers have historically focused on “the Golden Mean”. This session will highlight how researchers are embracing variability by incorporating environmental realism into experiments, and investigating sources of variability in data. Day 1 will focus on environmental variability - discussing lessons learned, outstanding questions, and best practices to mimic real-word scenarios in the lab. Day 2 will focus on variability in our data - answering the questions “How does variability arise - through experimental differences and/or performance differences in organisms?”, “What does it mean?”, and “How best to report it”. 

**Session Organisers:** Prof. Warren W. Burggren, Emily Hardison, Dr. Gail Schwieterman and Chris Wood

**Invited Speakers:** Dr. Anne Cremazy, Dr. Torben Göpel, Dr. Yangfan Zhang, Dr. Gil Martinez Bautista, Andrea Morash, Melanie Massey and Emily Donham

A7 - Embracing variability: Why it matters and what to do with it?

technical paper

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SEB Conference Prague 2024

SEB’s Annual Conference is celebrated for creating the perfect composition of research, new discoveries and collaborative connections. Be creative and innovative by exchanging ideas and knowledge with masters of biology from all over the world.

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Food deprivation, physiological impacts, and associated transcriptional responses in juvenile Chinook salmon

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