Sea lamprey like the smell of little sea lamprey...but not enough to come home

Sea lamprey do not home to natal streams like salmon. In simpler terms, sea lamprey do not seek out the stream from which they were born. Instead they rely on chemical cues to help guide them to a location that will let them reproduce successfully. One of these cues is the smell of larval sea lamprey (ammocoetes) buried within the stream beds. New work suggests that this smell, although it is important in making sure adults examine the stream to determine if they want to enter it to spawn, is not enough to actual make them swim upstream (link).

Presentation on work from this summer

I recently presented material at the annual New York American Fisheries Society conference! If you would like to see a video describing some of the results from this summer take a peak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh4isqLdTC0

Feel free to leave a comment and check out some of the other presentations if you have time, there are many more available to view on the NY AFS channel (Link).