Sk Shahinur Islam
Project
A test of genetic adaptation to captivity in diet after one generationThe central premise of this study is that (i) genetic adaptation to captivity can arise even after a single generation; (ii) the extent of this adaptation might differ among and within populations given that populations and families are rarely coming into captivity from the same starting point in their genetic/phenotypic characteristics, and that (iii) such adaptation may be most likely to occur at life stages which naturally experience high levels of mortality in nature. In highly fecund fishes, such as salmonids, natural and captive mortality is often highest in the first few months of exogenous feeding. We hypothesized that this might render salmonids particularly susceptible to genetic adaptation to captivity in relation to diet changes. Wild fish normally feed on live prey whereas they are fed pellet feed in captivity: fish that do not adopt pellet feed well under captive conditions experience reduced growth and/or die. We tested this hypothesis by generating a large number of families from F1 captive and wild fish originating from the same three populations and then rearing them each on pellet and live feed for three months at the beginning of exogenous feeding. We are expecting to see the growth and survival for both wild and captive in relation to diet effect.
