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Commercial, recreational and traditional fisheries for Chinook salmon are exceptionally important in British Columbia. However, the sustainability of these fisheries is at risk due to substantial declines in the number of Chinook salmon throughout the province, particularly in the Fraser River watershed and on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Many factors contribute to these declines, but BC’s changing climate has likely played a key role. Mitigating these effects and sustaining Chinook salmon fisheries will require informed management decisions that take into account the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, these effects are poorly understood and tools for predicting and monitoring the impacts of climate change on Chinook salmon are limited.

This project will address this issue by creating a genomic biomarker panel to predict the climate change resilience of Chinook salmon populations in BC. The climate change resilience will be assessed in four BC hatchery-enhanced stocks by measuring the maximum temperatures that Chinook salmon can tolerate. The variation among individuals and stocks will be used to identify genetic markers predictive of highly resilient fish. The curated markers will be used to generate a genotyping tool for assessing and monitoring the resilience of BC Chinook salmon. This tool will be very useful in guiding efforts to improve Chinook salmon through hatchery production, which is a crucial part of Chinook salmon conservation and mitigating the effects of climate change in British Columbia.