Brown trout (Salmo trutta) are extensively harvested and its habitat highly influenced by human encroachments. Using a 40-year time series of mark-recapture data we estimate vital rates for a piscivorous trout population. This population spawns upstream of a waterfall, which historically acted as a migration barrier for smaller trout. In 1966, the waterfall was dammed and a fish ladder construc...

The need for assessment of aquatic ecosystem contamination and of its impact on water dwelling organisms was developed in response to rising aquatic environmental pollution. In this field study, liver enzymes of phase I and phase II of xenobiotic transformation, namely cytochrome P450, ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase, glutathione-S-transferase and tripeptide glutathione were used to assess the con...

Proliferative kidney disease (PKD) is an emerging disease threatening wild salmonid populations. In temperature-controlled aquaria, PKD can cause mortality rates of up to 85% in rainbow trout. So far, no data about PKD-related mortality in wild brown trout Salmo trutta fario are available. The aim of this study was to investigate mortality rates and pathology in brown trout kept in a cage withi...

Temperature-induced changes in cardiac output (Q̇) in fish are largely dependent on thermal modulation of heart rate (fH), and at high temperatures Q̇ collapses due to heat-dependent depression of fH This study tests the hypothesis that firing rate of sinoatrial pacemaker cells sets the upper thermal limit of fH in vivo. To this end, temperature dependence of action potential (AP) frequency of en...

The aim of this preliminary research was to establish if there are intersex occurrences in wild freshwater fish in Slovenian rivers and streams. In the first study we evaluated all fish species of both sexes obtained from the river Ljubljanica from its source to mouth. In the second study we focused on the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trout (Salmo trutta m. fario) males from 30...

On the basis of the experiments carried out over various years, it was concluded that (1) grayling Thymallus thymallus and brown trout Salmo trutta are resistant to temperature-induced sex reversal at ecologically relevant temperatures, (2) environmental sex reversal is unlikely to cause the persistent sex ratio distortion observed in at least one of the study populations and (3) sex-specific t...

Evidence is reported for balancing selection acting on variation at major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in wild populations of brown trout Salmo trutta. First, variation at an MHC class I (satr-uba)-linked microsatellite locus (mhc1) is retained in small S. trutta populations isolated above waterfalls although variation is lost at neutral microsatellite markers. Second, populations across se...

 The endocrine cells of Salmo trutta macrostigma stomach and pyloric caeca have been investigated using immunohistochemical techniques. 8 antisera were tested and 6 of them were detected in the endocrine cells serotonin, somatostatin, substance P, galanin, CCK and neuropeptide Y. These immunoreactive cells are described for the first time in the stomach and pyloric caeaca of Salmo trutta macros...