Vaterite otoliths from chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)

Abstract

Vaterite replaces aragonite in a proportion of chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) otoliths. The degree of replacement varies from partial replacement to almost total. Occasionally both otoliths may be vateritic, but more often one is vateritic and the other is aragonitic. The vaterite replacement may be under single locus genetical control which can be overridden by temperatures above and below an optimum value. Vaterite otoliths show the same general conformation as aragonite otoliths in spite of the radically different amino acid metabolism that the occurrence of vaterite entails. © Crown 1986.