Acronym AARC
Category
Aquaculture
Title Atlantic Aquatic Resource Conservation Programme Interreg IV
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
Strand B
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
Atlantic Area
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source European Coordinator Bruce Stockley Coordinator email bruce@wrt.org.uk
Coordinator institution
WRT - Westcountry Rivers Trust (United Kingdom)
Institutions involved
ADIRN - Association for Integrated Development of Ribatejo Norte (Portugal) ,
ADDLAP - Dão Lafões and Alto Paiva Development Association (Portugal) ,
INRA - French National Institute for Agricultural Research (France) ,
SRFB - Shannon Regional Fisheries Board (Ireland) ,
UCC - University College Cork (Ireland) ,
UNEXE - University of Exeter (United Kingdom) ,
UNIOVI - University of Oviedo (Spain) ,
UP - University of Porto (Portugal) ,
Start year 2009 End year 2012 Funding (€) € 3,870,696 Website https://keep.eu/projects/408/Atlantic-Aquatic-Resource-Con-EN/ Summary The AARC project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund INTERREG IV Atlantic-area Trans-national Programme. Project partners include UCC, QUB/AFBINI, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the Marine Institute and the Electricity Supply Board. Some of the most productive Atlantic salmon rivers in Europe have been harnessed for hydro-electric power generation e.g. Shannon (Ireland), Conan (Scotland), Linares (Spain). In Ireland alone some 35% of the potential salmon producing habitat is impounded above hydroelectric dams. In compensation, hatchery mitigation programmes were established in most of these rivers, in order to compensate for the loss of productivity, to maintain natural runs and to preserve biodiversity. Despite the best efforts of these hatchery programmes, many of the salmon populations above these facilities are effectively extinct. The large hatchery programmes continue to exist but are increasingly coming under the spotlight from cost benefit analyses and their success in maintaining fisheries and protecting biodiversity. Most of these mitigation schemes were developed many decades ago before much of the contemporary information about sub-specific population genetics was developed. Thus, it would seem timely to reassess and redirect mitigation programmes with respect to the large body of evolutionary, population and quantitative genetic knowledge that now exists, particularly in terms of metapopulation theory, landscape genetics and new knowledge about the biology of the salmon (effective population size etc). It might also be possible to simulate natural re-colonisation processes, by combining ecological and evolutionary biological principles to resolve these most difficult fisheries management problems. This project addresses the research question, “What is the potential of artificially assisted re-colonisation of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) based on applying meta-population theory for ecological mitigation?”. There are two parts to this project (1) Common Garden Experiment and (2) Establishment of a Genetic Baseline. The first part is an assessment of the relative fitness of the progeny of the Shannon hatchery population with respect to the progeny of the contemporary extant naturally-spawning
population and the progeny of two non-impacted wild salmon populations obtained from rivers located below the dam. The
second part is the provision of a genetic baseline consisting of: samples collected from (1) historical populations derived from
archive scale collections (1929–1980); (2) contemporary residual naturally- spawning populations from above the
hydroelectric generating facility; (3) the contemporary hatchery population; and (4) contemporary samples from wild
populations in rivers located below the dam. In 2010, we collected material from five residual populations in tributary rivers
flowing into Lough Derg and the two principal rivers downstream of the hydroelectric facility. In addition, we have been
undertaking some trial screening of archive scale samples to assess DNA quality and to determine the most effective method
of acquiring high quality DNA.
Keywords
Genetic;
Fisheries management;
Restocking;
Salmon;
Fish;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
Marine Region Map
