AQUACULTURE STUDENT

ADAM HARRINGTON

What They Did Back Then

* Master of Science completed 1994, University of Guelph

Advisor: Professor Richard D. Moccia

Examination of factors affecting the variability in reproductive performance of cryopreserved semen from salmonids fishes.

ABSTRACT

This study examined variation in the reproductive performance of cryopreserved semen from different family lines, and assessed the suitability of present methods of semen cryopreservation by evaluating the fertility, viability, and lipid profiles of semen from two salmonids.

Cryopreserved semen from 20 family lines of precociously mature Atlantic salmon parr was used to fertilize individual batches of eggs. Results from this study were inconclusive due to low egg viability, and probable deficiencies in semen quality associated with precociously mature parr.

Arctic char semen was frozen using both a synthetic and an ovarian fluid extender. A high degree of intraspecific variation in semen was indicated by the wide range of values for percent hatch, motility, cell density, and pre- and post-thaw total fatty acid (TFA) profiles. TFA profiles of cryopreserved semen indicate a loss of fatty acids, specifically 20:5n3 and 22:6n3, from spermatozoa, likely due to plasma membrane damage during cryopreservation.