A graduate student (from Waterloo, I believe) is studying Red and White Chinook at the Quesnel River Research Center as the Quesnel population has both red and white chinook and the centre has converted old hatchery raceways into closed spawning channels ideal for conducting many experiments. As carotenids are known to enhance the immune system, it is thought that their storage is beneficial to salmonids, which begs the question how and why white-fleshed, non-carotenid storing, chinook persist, particularly in systems with both red-fleshed and white-fleshed individuals. I believe she is looking at mate selection (early indication is that red females tend to spawn with red males but white females are more indiscriminate), difference in egg survival (as eggs from white females also lack pigment and may have a lower predation mortality) and rates of heterozygosity between the groups across a number of genes as increased heterozygosity (i.e. number of different genes an individual carries) is also linked to increased fitness (I understand that early results are showing higher rates of heterozygosity in white-fleshed individuals).
I believe this fall is the last of her field work/research so her masters thesis paper should be published in the upcoming year and add to the limited science available on this topic.
Cheers!
Ukee