Overwintering of sea trout (Salmo trutta) in freshwater: escaping salt and low temperature or an alternate life strategy?

Brown trout (Salmo trutta) show large phenotypic plasticity. Juveniles may reside in their native freshwater habitat until maturation or migrate into the ocean as 1- to 3-year-old smolts. Sea-going fish (sea trout) reside at sea for 2–3 years until migrating back to their native stream for reproduction. However, immature fish may leave the ocean during their first or second winter at sea and overwinter in freshwater. The question is why does this occur? We tested the hypothesis that hypo-osmoregulatory capacity is compromised by low temperature in two coastal sea trout populations, one representing high salinity and the other, low salinity. Immature sea-run trout were caught in lower parts of two rivers during winter and acclimated to laboratory conditions. Subgroups were challenged with high salinity or low water temperature or both, and their osmoregulatory performance was investigated. Low temperature compromised the hypo-osmoregulatory ability, as indicated by insufficient compensatory adjustments of ion-transport mechanisms. Tagging experiments revealed that descent of overwintering fish into the ocean occurred over a narrow time period coincident with increasing water temperature. We conclude that overwintering in freshwater is partly driven by compromised osmoregulatory physiology, but because not all fish in a population do so, the phenomenon may also reflect diverging life strategies.