The Atlantic salmon is an anadromous fish that migrates from rivers to forage in feeding grounds that extend into the Arctic circle. In recent decades, across many populations, the numbers of returning adults to their natal rivers to spawn have declined steadily. The period of the early marine residence stage of the Atlantic salmons life cycle, when individuals are on migration to foraging grounds, has been identified as a particularly critical period during which post-smolts are subject to high mortality rates. An increased understanding of the ecology of this marine phase of the Atlantic salmons life cycle is urgently required. While systematic sample collection of a species undertaking such a long marine migration are difficult and expensive to collect, a multinational survey over two years involving ten dedicated marine survey cruises has collected samples of this ecologically and economically important species during their migration. The role of this professional practise is to prepare samples of Atlantic salmon post smolts, as well as key components of the marine foodweb, from a number of sampling stations located off the west of Ireland extending into the Norwegian Sea that were sampled over a two year period.
The student engaged on this professional practice topic will contribute to the project: Unlocking the Archive: using scale and otolith chronologies to resolve climate impacts. The Archive project is a collaboration between the Marine and Freshwater Research Centre at GMIT and the Irish Marine Institute, funded under the Marine Research Programme by the Irish Government. The student will work alongside a PhD student and a research assistant employed on the project and will be involved in a variety of tasks including plankton sorting and sample preparation of phytoplankton, zooplankton, Atlantic salmon and other fish species for analyses for stale isotope ratio determination via isotope ratio mass spectrometry coupled to an elemental analyser.
