劳拉·赫伯格/密歇根桥报 密歇根州自然资源部已开始使用基因检测来追踪其部分鱼类放流行动的成功情况。
LAURA HERBERG/Bridge Michigan The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has begun using genetic testing to track the success of some of its fish-stocking operations.
其目标是弄清楚特定水域中的鱼类是否源自放流鱼的亲本。这样做有助于自然资源部了解其耗资数百万美元的放流工作是否有效，通过判断放流鱼是否在水道中存活下来来得出结论。
The goal is to find out if fish living in a particular water body descended from the parents of stocked fish. Doing so helps the DNR know if its multimillion-dollar stocking efforts are paying off by telling them if the stocked fish are living on in the waterway.
“可以把基因（检测）想象成Ancestry.com、23andMe，”密歇根州自然资源部高级渔业管理生物学家詹恩·约翰逊在该部门周三在马凯特举行的会议上对自然资源委员会表示。“你们是否有亲缘关系？这就是我们在这里提出的核心问题。”自然资源部每年约有三分之一的预算用于鱼类养殖和放流。在2024-25财政年度，这一支出超过1100万美元。根据该部门的说法，过去追踪成功的方法要么受限，要么成本高昂。
“Think about genetics (testing) like Ancestry.com, 23andMe,” Jen Johnson, senior fisheries management biologist for the DNR, told the Michigan Natural Resources Commission during its meeting Wednesday in Marquette. “Are you related? That’s the big question that we’re asking here.”The DNR spends about a third of its annual budget on fish rearing and stocking. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, that totaled over $11 million. According to the department, past methods of tracking success have been limited or costly.
采用新方法——称为亲缘追踪——的试点研究已显示出成本效益，节省了人力时间，并得出了一些启发性的结果。
Pilot research with the new method, known as parentage-based tracking, has been cost-effective, freed up staff time, and has shown some illuminating results.
“这个工具将为我们在鱼类部门的工作带来许多洞察，”密歇根州自然资源部渔业主管兰迪·克拉拉蒙特说道。
“This tool is going to open up a lot of insights into what we do at the fish division,” said Randy Claramunt, fisheries chief for the DNR.
它将使该部门能够评估他们捕获的鱼是天然繁殖的，还是源自自然资源部培育并放流的鱼，从而了解哪种方法效果更好。
It will allow the division to assess whether fish they catch were born naturally or from fish bred and stocked by the DNR, which will give them a sense of which approach is working better.
自然资源部培育和放流鱼类主要是为了为人们创造新的钓鱼场所，以便针对特定物种进行垂钓，或者增加困难种群的数量。该部门可以通过给鱼贴标签并在之后再次搜索来检查放流鱼是否在引入地点存活。
The DNR breeds and stocks fish primarily to create new places for people to fish a certain species or to add numbers to struggling populations. The department can check to see if stocked fish are surviving in their introduced location by tagging the fish and then searching for them there at a later date.
但贴标签方法存在问题。使用物理标签意味着需要逐条给鱼贴标签。标签可能会脱落，或者钓鱼者在捕获带标签的鱼时可能未能上报。
But tagging methods have been problematic. Using physical tags has meant individually tagging fish. Tags can get lost or an angler may fail to report when they reel in a tagged fish.
另一种标记方法是通过在鱼体内部进行标记，但该方法只能在死鱼上通过显微镜进行验证，并且需要占用大量人力时间。它的成本也比基因检测更高。
Another method of tagging involves internally marking fish, but that method can only be verified on dead fish using a microscope, and it takes up a lot of staff time. It’s also more expensive than genetic testing.
亲缘关系标记法涉及对放养鱼群父母的DNA进行基因分析。研究人员会收集父母的DNA，因为它们的后代在幼年时非常脆弱。这样做也有助于他们确定最成功父母的特征。
Parentage-based tagging involves genetically analyzing the DNA of the parents of a brood of stocked fish. Researchers collect the parents’ DNA since their offspring are fragile when young. Doing so can also help them determine the qualities of the most successful parents.
后来，当在进行放养的区域捕获鱼类时，它们的DNA会被送往密歇根州立大学的实验室，以确定它们是否与放养鱼的父母有亲缘关系。
Later, when fish are caught in an area where stocking occurred, their DNA is sent to a lab at Michigan State University to find out if they were related to the parents of the stocked fish.
“这真是一种很酷的技术。但在我们实际上在全州范围内实施之前，先启动一个较小的试点项目来看看这是否是一种真正有效的技术，这是一个明智的想法，”约翰逊说。
“It’s a really cool technique. But before we actually implemented this statewide, it was a wise idea to start a smaller pilot project to see if this is an actual effective technique,” Johnson said.
因此，她决定使用亲缘关系标记法来评估密歇根州自然资源部（DNR）在上半岛的迪金森县和铁县的 walleye 放养方法的成功程度。
So she decided to use parentage-based tagging to evaluate the success of the DNR’s walleye stocking methods in Dickinson and Iron counties in the Upper Peninsula.
在2024年至2025年之间，约翰逊的团队在那些水域收集了鱼类，结果相当令人启发。
Between 2024 and 2025, Johnson’s team collected fish from some waterbodies there and the results were pretty illuminating.
在埃米莉湖捕获的25条鱼中，有24条被发现与放养鱼群有亲缘关系。因此，放养在那里是有效的。
Out of 25 fish caught in Lake Emily, 24 were found to be related to the stocked fish family. So stocking was working there.
但在另外两个湖泊中，情况则相反。在哈格曼湖捕获的147条鱼中，只有两条与放养鱼有亲缘关系。在渥太华湖捕获的34条鱼中，同样只有两条与放养鱼有亲缘关系。
But the opposite was found in two other lakes. Out of 147 fish caught in Hargerman Lake, only two were related to the stocked fish. Out of 34 fish caught in Lake Ottawa, again just two were related to the stocked fish.
通过进一步的基因分析，约翰逊发现哈格曼湖的 walleye 与他们最近用于 walleye 放养繁殖工作的小湾德诺克（Little Bay de Noc）中的 walleye 完全没有亲缘关系。
Using further genetic analysis, Johnson determined that the walleye in Hagerman Lake were not related at all to the walleye found in Little Bay de Noc, which is where they had been getting the parents for recent walleye stocking reproduction efforts.
然而，他们发现哈格曼湖的眼鳞鱼与从1980年代用于鱼类放养工作的父母鱼来源地——戈戈比克湖的眼鳞鱼在基因上无法区分。当时的放养工作取得了成功，而该湖最近的放养工作则不然。
However, they found that the walleye in Hagerman Lake were genetically indistinguishable from walleye found in Lake Gogebic, where the parents for fish stocking efforts of the 1980s were taken from. Efforts from that decade were successful, while the recent efforts in the lake were not.
“放养是一项昂贵的工作，令人恼火的是，我们正在尝试进行基本无效的放养，”自然资源专员布兰登·费文斯说。
“Stocking’s an expensive endeavor, and annoyingly, we’re trying to do stocking attempts that were largely ineffective,” Natural Resources Commissioner Brandon Fewens said.
“如果我说了算，我们放养的全部2000万条鱼都会被贴上标签，这样我们就能对它们进行评估，”渔业主管克拉拉蒙特回应道。
“If I had my way, all 20 million fish we stocked would be tagged, so we could evaluate them,” responded Claramunt, the fisheries chief.
对于即将到来的财政年度，密歇根州自然资源部将从全州各水体中采集500份已放养的眼鳞鱼样本，进行基因检测。约翰逊表示，这“将有助于帮助生物学家做出放养决策”。例如，他们将不再继续向哈格曼湖放养鱼类。
For this upcoming fiscal year, the DNR will take 500 samples of stocked walleye from waterbodies across the state to have them genetically tested. Johnson said this “is going to help enable biologists with their stocking decisions.”For example, they will not continue to stock Hagerman Lake.
未来将该计划扩展到其他物种“最终将帮助我们回答许多我们目前面临的管理问题。”本文最初由《桥密歇根》发表，并通过与美联社的合作伙伴关系进行分发。
Expanding the program to other species in the future would “ultimately help us answer a lot of these management questions we have.”