Contact
Sæmundur Sveinsson
Research Group Leader
saemundurs@matis.is
In the past few weeks, numerous farmed salmon have been caught in many parts of the country, which indicates that farmed salmon in salmon fishing rivers has become quite widespread in Iceland. Fish farming has been practiced in this country for decades to increase the number of fish in rivers. That culture is based on fishing for hatchery fish from the respective rivers and rearing the fry in hatcheries.
It is important to ensure that farmed salmon do not find their way into these farms, as this can greatly increase the genetic mix in rivers. In many cases, salmonids are easily recognized by their appearance, eg damaged fins and destroyed gill bars. It can be much more difficult to recognize salmon that have escaped early in the breeding process, as the traditional visual characteristics are not as obvious. Visual evaluation is not sufficiently reliable to remove fish originating from aquaculture. Genetic analyzes are therefore necessary to ensure that fish used for fish farming are wild. Matís has been carrying out genetic analysis of salmon for years, both for basic research but also to trace the origin of salmon caught in rivers.
The genetic analyzes that Matís offers are based on 14 genetic markers, the so-called Salsea set. These genetic boundaries are extremely sensitive and have been used to assess the population structure of Icelandic salmon. The genetic boundaries have also proven to be useful for tracing salmon caught as bycatch in pelagic fisheries off Iceland to rivers in Europe and Iceland. The genotyping kit is also sensitive enough to distinguish between farmed and wild salmon and can detect first-generation hybrids. A first generation hybrid is the offspring of wild salmon and farmed fish.
Matís offers fishing partners genetic analysis of fish to be used in fish farming.
Those interested are advised to contact Dr. Sæmund Sveinsson, specialist in genetics.