Pattens of Imprinting and Homing in Coho Salmon

鲑鱼洄游到它们的发源地是动物行为的一大谜团。众所周知，小鲑鱼学会了家乡河流的气味，并在成年后返回时寻找这些气味。然而，尚不清楚它们是追溯气味序列，还是仅仅寻找它们在向海迁移之前经历过的气味。也不知道它们是在特定的发育阶段才学会气味，还是在淡水生活期间的任何时候都能学会气味。为了帮助解决这些问题，奎因博士和他的同事们在1988年饲养了幼银鲑，并在特定的时间和发育阶段将它们暴露在华盛顿大学孵化场的气味中。它们从另一个孵化场被释放出来，预计在1989年和1990年秋天成年后会回来。根据不同实验组的鲑鱼返回的地方，奎因博士希望确定它们在幼年时学习环境气味的方式，以及它们在几年后如何利用这些气味返回。归巢是鲑鱼生活史的一个基本特征。了解归巢背后的行为模式将提高保护和恢复这些极其珍贵的鱼类种群的能力。

The homing of salmon to the rivers where they originated is one of the great mysteries of animal behavior. It is known that young salmon learn the odors of their home river and seek these odors when they return as adults. However, it is not known whether they retrace a sequence of odors or merely seek the odor that they experienced prior to seaward migration. It is also not known whether they can learn odors only at specific developmental stages or at any time during their period of freshwaterresidence. To help resolve these questions, Dr. Quinn and his colleagues reared juvenile coho salmon and exposed them to the odors of the University of Washington's hatchery at specific times and developmental stages in 1988. They were released from another hatchery and are expected to return as adults in fall 1989 and 1990. Depending on where the salmon from the different experimental groups return, Dr. Quinn hopes to determine the ways in which they learned the odors of their environment as young fish and how they use these odors to return years later. Homing is an essential feature of the life history of salmon. Knowledge of the patterns of behavior underlying homing will enhance the ability to protect and rehabilitate populations of these extremely valuable fishes.