Field Vehicle in Support of Research on Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Biology of Fishes

The equipment requested in the current grant proposal will replace a previous field vehicle that is: (i) almost 15 years old; (ii) no longer considered to provide a safe means of transporting graduate students and student field assistants; and (iii) inadequate for research transportation demands. The equipment will support research on brook trout, Atlantic salmon, and Atlantic cod. The salmon work is in Nova Scotia and involves studies of alternative male reproductive strategies in the species. The trout work, being undertaken on more than 20 populations in southeastern Newfoundland, involves the extension of a long-term (25 years) study on life history, dispersal, phenotypic plasticity, and conservation biology. The cod work involves the catching, transportation, and husbandry of fish from throughout eastern Canada that are required for behavioural work, studies of the spatial scale of local adaptation and stock structure, and work on the causes of slow recovery in this species.The research will benefit Canada from a conservation and a socio-economic perspective. Salmon in southeastern Canada are endangered. Trout are of vital importance to the recreational fisheries of Newfoundland (and indeed most of eastern Canada). Atlantic cod, despite reductions in abundance, represents an economically important fish in most of eastern Canada. Anticipated research outcomes, which will benefit my field of research and society as a whole, include: (i) greater understanding of the ability of Canadian fishes to respond to climate change; (ii) knowledge of the causal basis for, and fitness consequences of, sex-biased dispersal in freshwater fish; (iii) determination of the spatial scale of local adaptation in trout and cod; and (iv) knowledge of how changes in sex ratio and density affect fertilisation rates and potentially recovery in Atlantic cod.