title: Alternative reproductive tactics increase effective population size and decrease inbreeding in wild Atlantic salmon.
abstract: While nonanadromous males (stream-resident and/or mature male parr) contribute to reproduction in anadromous salmonids, little is known about their impacts on key population genetic parameters. Here, we evaluated the contribution of Atlantic salmon mature male parr to the effective number of breeders (Nb) using both demographic (variance in reproductive success) and genetic (linkage disequilibrium) methods, the number of alleles, and the relatedness among breeders. We used a recently published pedigree reconstruction of a wild anadromous Atlantic salmon population in which 2548 fry born in 2010 were assigned parentage to 144 anadromous female and 101 anadromous females that returned to the river to spawn in 2009 and to 462 mature male parr. Demographic and genetic methods revealed that mature male parr increased population Nb by 1.79 and 1.85 times, respectively. Moreover, mature male parr boosted the number of alleles found among progenies. Finally, mature male parr were in average less related to anadromous females than were anadromous males, likely because of asynchronous sexual maturation between mature male parr and anadromous fish of a given cohort. By increasing Nb and allelic richness, and by decreasing inbreeding, the reproductive contribution of mature male parr has important evolutionary and conservation implications for declining Atlantic salmon populations.
authors.affiliation: Département de Biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Perrier
authors.affiliation: Département de Biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Éric
authors.initials: É
authors.lastname: Normandeau
authors.affiliation: Direction de la faune aquatique, Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Mélanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dionne
authors.affiliation: Département de Biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Richard
authors.affiliation: Département de Biologie, Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval Québec, Canada.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bernatchez
keywords: Effective population size; effective number of breeders; genetic diversity; kinship; parentage analysis; relatedness; reproductive success; reproductive tactic.