Salinity tolerance of juvenile sturgeons
Sturgeons live in freshwater, seawater or somewhere in between (known as brackish water), depending on species. Regardless, adults migrate into freshwater to lay their eggs, as the embryos and larvae wouldn’t survive in high salinity. At some stage juveniles must begin yo migrate out to saltier waters, but that is generally unknown for many sturgeon species. We exposed juvenile shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) to a 72h salt water challenge (brackish water and seawater), and used blood chemistry techniques (salt content of blood, hemoglobin, and protein levels) to determine when these ancient fish may begin entering salt water. Turns out juveniles may be entering brackish water earlier than previously believed, but seawater is still too much at one year of age.
Skill set:
-Salinity tolerance experiments
-Taking blood from fishes
-blood chemistry techniques (plasma sodium, chloride, potassium, hemoglobin hematocrit)
Notable papers:
72 h seawater challenge:
SeawaterXtemperature challenge:
Dr. Adam T. Downie, PhD 