CHANGES IN THE MULTIPLE HEMOGLOBIN PATTERNS OF SOME PACIFIC SALMON, GENUS ONCORHYNCHUS, DURING THE PARR–SMOLT TRANSFORMATION

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Abstract
By employing starch gel electrophoresis it has been found that coho salmon fry and smolts contain 10 anodal-migrating, and 12 cathodal-migrating, hemoglobin fractions. Prepuberal 1 1/2 year-old coho salmon caught at sea and sexually mature adults taken from fresh water contained the same anodal fractions and at approximately the same concentrations as were found in fry and smolts. However, the concentrations of the cathodal fractions had increased so that these were very nearly equal to those of the anodal fractions. Similar hemoglobin changes were found in both anadromous and land-locked sockeye salmon, but in this species seven anodal and six cathodal fractions were present at their "adult" concentrations in fry and smolts. Six other cathodal fractions which were absent entirely or present only in trace amounts in fry and smolts increased to their adult concentrations some time later in the life cycle of both varieties of sockeye. It is postulated that these changes reflect an ecological adaption to life in the ocean.