Elodie Boussinet has completed her Master's thesis in 2018 with the comparison of downstream migration tactics of the Allis shad population at 30-year intervals in the Gironde system (Fauna/Shad'EAU project). She then enrolled as a PhD student in 2019 at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the University of Trier at the Environmental Campus Birkenfeld in Germany. Her tasks are to increase the knowledge of the life cycle, to understand and identify spawning grounds as well as to evaluate the success of the shad reintroduction program in the Rhine system which has been taking place since 2008. Elodie has succeeded in differentiating Allis shad individuals from the reintroduction program (i.e., originating from the Gironde system via the MIGADO breeding program) from the natural reproduction population (i.e., Rhine system) via otolith microstructure (age) and microchemistry (natal origin, downstream migration) analyses.

Her presentation will focus on methods to differentiate the two populations (reintroduced vs. natural population) observed in the Rhine system in order to evaluate the success of the reintroduction program as well as to manage the discovery of new potential spawning grounds and thus increase the effort in the future on the management of the Rhine shad population.

Talk : Development of population monitoring methods for the reintroduced Allis shad (Alosa alosa) in the Rhine system