Student Example Explanation: “Salmon lay so many eggs because they face a lot of adversity on the journey to becoming adult coho salmon!” Teacher Example Explanation: “Since so many salmon die before reaching spawning adulthood, laying more eggs increases the probability for successful reproduction and a sustaining population of salmon”.
Female salmon release orange eggs. She may lay two to ten thousand eggs. Each of these is about the size of a small pea. Salmon eggs are rich in yolk – the material used as the food for the developing fish.
Why do salmon lay eggs outside the body?
This is because they are fertilized outside of the body and are highly sensitive to temperature changes and external factors. Female salmon, for instance, will lay anywhere from 1,500 eggs to about 10,000 at one time. Among these eggs, only around 10 will successfully spawn salmon.
Salmon eggs are rich in yolk – the material used as the food for the developing fish. Male salmon release white milt. The milt contains millions of sperm. Salmon gametes mixing. (GA image) Fertilization occurs as the salmon eggs and milt mix.
Thomas Quinn reports in his book The Behavior and Ecology of Pacific Salmon & Trout that chinook lay an average of 5,400 eggs. Coming in a close second are steelhead with 4,900 eggs, and the other species ranging from 1,000+ to 3,000+ eggs .
Another frequent query is “Why do fish lay so many eggs?”.
One way to consider this is fish lay a large number of eggs because only a few of them, out of thousands, will be fertilized and produce a fish. This is because they are fertilized outside of the body and are highly sensitive to temperature changes and external factors.
Male salmon release white milt. The milt contains millions of sperm. Salmon gametes mixing. (GA image) Fertilization occurs as the salmon eggs and milt mix. The fertilized egg then settles into the redd (just below grade so that the flow of the stream does not move the fertilized egg).
How do salmon get their energy?
In their gill epithelial cells, salmon have a special enzyme that hydrolyzes ATP and uses the released energy to actively transport both Na + and Cl – against their concentration gradients.