Nature versus nurture? Consequences of short captivity in early stages.

Biological changes occurring as a consequence of domestication and/or captivity are not still deeply known. In Atlantic salmon (S), endangered (Southern Europe) populations are enhanced by supportive breeding, which involves only 6 months of captive rearing following artificial spawning of wild-collected adults. In this work, we assess whether several fitness-correlated life-history traits (migratory behavior, straying rate, age at maturity, and growth) are affected by early exposure to the captive environment within a generation, before reproduction thus before genetic selection.