Alternative life-history strategy contributions to effective population size in a naturally spawning salmon population.

Alternative life-history tactics are predicted to affect within-population genetic processes but have received little attention. For example, the impact of precocious males on effective population size ( N _e ) has not been quantified directly in Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp., even though they can make up a large percentage of the total male spawners. We investigated the contribution of precocial males ("jacks") to N _e in a naturally spawning population of Coho Salmon O. kisutch from the Auke Creek watershed in Juneau, Alaska. Mature adults that returned from 2009 to 2019 (~8000 individuals) were genotyped at 259 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci for parentage analysis. We used demographic and genetic methods to estimate the effective number of breeders per year ( N _b ). Jack contribution to N _b was assessed by comparing values of N _b calculated with and without jacks and their offspring. Over a range of N _b values (108-406), the average jack contribution to N _b from 2009 to 2015 was 12.9% (SE = 3.8%). Jacks consistently made up over 20% of the total male spawners. The presence of jacks did not seem to influence N _b / N . The linkage disequilibrium N _e estimate was lower than the demographic estimate, possibly due to immigration effects on population genetic processes: based on external marks and parentage data, we estimated that immigrant spawners produced 4.5% of all returning offspring. Our results demonstrate that jacks can influence N _b and N _e and can make a substantial contribution to population dynamics and conservation of threatened stocks.
Competing Interests: We declare no conflicts of interest.
(© 2023 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)