Marine Biology Commons^™

Innovating Transcriptomics For Practitioners In Freshwater Fish Management And Conservation: Best Practices Across Diverse Resource-Sector Users, C. A.D. Semeniuk, K. M. Jeffries, T. Li, C. M. Bettles, S. J. Cooke, B. A. Dufour, E. A. Halfyard, J. W. Heath, K. Keeshig, N. E. Mandrak, A. J. Muir, L. Postma, D. D. Heath

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Thriving freshwater fish populations contribute to people’s economic prosperity and wellbeing. Yet, freshwater fish populations are in critical condition around the globe. Most stressors to freshwater fishes, fisheries, and culture stem from habitat impacts, water-quality issues, and aquatic invasive species. Logistical difficulties of monitoring fish health are compounded by the limitations of conventional (capture-based) sampling methods, which provide only a temporal “snapshot” and generate data lacking in sensitivity and prognostic ability. Here, we propose an innovative genomics approach to develop a health toolkit that will allow resource-sector users to determine the health status of freshwater fishes, including their coping capacity, …