Wednesday June 25, 2025
SIU —
Scientists at Southern Illinois University Carbondale are making an iconic but troubled fish’s life easier, looking at how pesticides may impact Chinook salmon’s ability to avoid predators while migrating to the ocean.
Michael Lydy, professor of zoology, and Kara Huff Hartz, senior scientist at SIU’s Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences, are cooperating with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the University of California-Davis on the project. They are examining the specific sublethal effects that varying amounts and types of pesticides have on the fish’s natural predatory-avoidance behaviors.
The goal is to create a tool called a “response spectrum model” that predicts the various effects associated with exposure to pesticides among the fish. It would give wildlife managers the chance to use residue data to assess the sublethal effects of such exposures in field-caught fish and then take various corrective actions designed to help them survive.