Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University KUDO Hideaki
Salmon that are born in the river and grow
up in the ocean perform a “homing habit”, returning to the river where they
were born in order to leave behind their offspring. This life phenomenon is not
only biologically interesting, but also fisheries and propagation projects have
been developed to take advantage of this characteristic. In this lecture, I
will give an overview of salmon migration, mainly from a physiological
perspective, and discuss ongoing research on “olfactory imprinting”, which is
strongly related to the identification of the home river during the final stage
of homing habit.