VANN: Surveys, stable isotopes, satellites and salmon: exploring elements of the marine ecology of Barents Sea Salmo salar

Salmon rivers in northernmost Norway, Finland and the Kola peninsula (Russia), support important fisheries, both in coastal areas and in the rivers themselves, and contribute more than 50% of the world freshwater catch of wild Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar ). The River Tana, along with other important Barents Sea and Kola peninsula rivers, remain among an increasingly rarer group of stocks that, to date, have been spared from being categorized by continued long-term declines in abundance that are increasin gly becoming more common throughout the North Atlantic. Owing to the importance of the marine environment to the productivity of these northern populations, we aim to assess long term changes in the trophic ecology of salmon through analyses of stable is otope signatures (??13C and ?15N) of archived scale collections. We also propose to examine marine distribution patterns and ocean forage areas by the combined use of ?pop-up? archival satellite tags and conventional DST archival tags, apply molecular ge netic methods to identify the contribution of specific tributary stocks to a mixed-stock fishery, and analyze co-variation in biotic and abiotic parameters associated with the marine environment to better understand and explain fluctuations in salmon surv ival and abundance of these northern rivers.