• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.112-120
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• 2007

This paper reviews the use of parasites as 'biological tags' for studying stock analysis of salmonid fishes. Numerous definitions of stock concepts exist, but most of them essentially define a group of fish as having similar biological characteristics and being self-reproducing as stocks. It is important to manage fish stocks for human consumption and sustainable production and especially for salmonid fishes. Because these fry are considered as each country's property, it is necessary to identify and discriminate each fish stock in the open sea. Methods of separating fish stocks are very diverse. Artificial tags, parasites, otoliths scales and genetic characters have been used for stock analysis and each method has advantages and disadvantages. Of these parasites can be good biological tags because they are applied by nature at no cost. Parasites can be infected with susceptible host fishes when they enter into certain areas. Then if they move to the outside and are caught researchers can infer that the fish had been in the endemic area for a period of time during their life. Hence the host fish can be considered as naturally 'tagged' by parasites. However, if they do not pass the parasites-endemic. area, they will harbour no parasites. Therefore, researchers can discriminate each fish stocks and trace their migration routes with these biological tags. In this paper, several examples on the use of parasites as biological tags for studying salmonids, as well as other species, are listed. The advantages and limitations of parasites as biological tags are also discussed. Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), the main salmonid species migrating to Korea, is distributed all around the North Pacific. Korean chum salmon are generally thought to move to the Sea of Okhotsk, the western North Pacific and the Bering Sea. However, there is no clear information on the distribution and migration pathways of Korean chum salmon, and no markers exist for separating them from others yet. Recent Korean chum salmon stock analysis including parasites information are mentioned.