The 2008 Pacific salmon telemetry project in British Columbia, Canada.

The marine phase is assumed to have the major influence on variations in population abundances of Atlantic salmon. However, compared to the freshwater phase, knowledge of marine life-history is scare and completely lacking for most populations. In recent years, important information regarding marine migrations of a few southern populations has been obtained. However, little or no comparative information exists from northern populations, but they are hypothesized to have different migration behavior both w ithin fjords and utilizing different areas in the open ocean. Owing to the importance of the initial life-history stage of post-smolts at sea, and the lack of information regarding ocean migrations of northern salmon populations, the focus of this PhD-pro gram is to estimate early survival and migration behavior of wild post-smolt in (i) a typical southern and (ii) northern Norwegian fjord system with different morphological and oceanographic characters, and (iii) the long term open ocean migrations of adu lt northern salmon. Advanced telemetry methods within the fjords, and a new tool for analyzing combined information from data logger tags with high resolution sea surface data (SST) for estimating migration routes in the open ocean are used. This approach will generate new and basic knowledge important for future management of salmon populations, and contribute to a better understanding of the oscillations in returning rates of adult salmon on different geographical scales. The objective behind the stay a t the University of British Columbia is to be introduced to the large-scale Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project (POST) (http://www.postcoml.org/). The POST project is currently working with related projects on pacific salmon. The planned "Pacific salmon telemetry project in British Columbia, Canada", will give Davidsen an unique chance of building network with probably the largest research group within acoustic telemetry in the world.