Data from: Insights on the concept of indicator populations derived from parentage-based tagging in a large-scale coho salmon application in British Columbia, Canada

For Pacific salmon, the key fisheries management goal in British Columbia (BC) is to maintain and restore healthy and diverse Pacific salmon populations, making conservation of salmon biodiversity the highest priority for resource management decision-making. Salmon status assessments are often conducted on coded-wire tagged subsets of indicator populations based on assumptions of little differentiation within or among proximal populations. In the current study of southern BC coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) populations, parentage-based tagging (PBT) analysis provided novel information on migration and life history patterns to test the assumptions of biological homogeneity over limited (generally < 100km) geographic distances and, potentially, to inform management of fisheries and hatchery broodstocks. Heterogeneity for location and timing of fishery captures, family productivity, and exploitation rate was observed over small geographic scales, within regions that are, or might be expected to be, within the area encompassed by a single tagged indicator population. These results provide little support for the suggestion that information gained from tagged indicator populations is representative of marine distribution, productivity, and exploitation patterns of proximal populations.2018_Coho_brood_rubias This is multi-locus genotype data for the coho brood collected in 2018. These were sampled when they returned to the Hatchery. These are in Rubias format. 2018_Coho_fishery_rubias This is multi-locus genotype data for the coho collected in 2018. These were samples taken in fisheries. These are in Rubias format. 2018_Coho_escapement_rubias This is multi-locus genotype data for the coho escapements collected in 2018. These were sampled when they returned. These are in Rubias format