Genome duplication and evolution in salmonids

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With 25% of the world's coastline and 16% of the world's fresh water in the form of lakes and rivers, Canada's responsibility to the environment, conservation and potential commercial activities is tremendous. Inhabiting most of the ocean and fresh waters are members of the Salmonidae family which include the whitefishes and ciscos (subfamily Coregoninae), graylings (subfamily Thymallinae) and trout, salmon and charr (subfamily Salmoninae).      The salmonid fishes are economically important, scientifically interesting and culturally relevant for Canadians and the rest of the world.  Salmonids - Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout Arctic charr and others provide employment for 12,390 Canadians (2001), 90% of which reside in coastal, rural and Aboriginal communities. In addition, harvesting wild salmonids is still a very important activity, however many North American wild salmonid fisheries are threatened. Better science-based conservation measures are badly needed.Scientifically, salmonids have been the subject of over 4,200 scientific publications in the last four years and interests span areas of physiology, toxicology, health, conservation, evolution, and biochemistry.   Salmonids are of special scientific interest because a whole genome duplication in their recent past has doubled all of their genes.  This created an unstable genetic state from which the different species of salmonids have taken a variety of strategies to rediploidize (stabilize) their genome. Salmonids are therefor an excellent model system to investigate the consequences of a whole genome duplication.   Genome duplication is a reoccuring theme in vertebrate evolution that has played a fundamental role in generating large numbers of species and the complexity seen in modern vertebrates and humans.