Fisheries Research Articles

Murky waters: Searching for structure in genetically depauperate blue threadfin populations of Western Australia

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-23-2013

Journal Title

Fisheries Research

ISSN

Print: 0165-7836 Electronic: 1872-6763

Keywords

Polynemidae, Population genetics, Self-recruitment, Recruitment cohorts

Disciplines

Aquaculture and Fisheries | Genetics | Genomics | Natural Resources and Conservation | Natural Resources Management and Policy | Population Biology | Sustainability

Abstract

he blue threadfin (Eleutheronema tetradactylum) is an exploited fishery species in southeast Asia and Australia. Demographic studies have revealed fine-scale stock structure throughout the Australian coastline, with demographically isolated populations separated by only tens of km. Similarly, population genetic analysis revealed fine-scale structure across most of its Australian range with important implications for fisheries management. However, in northern Western Australia, genetic stock structure analysis showed a contradictory lack of structure. In the present study, one mtDNA marker and a suite of five microsatellite loci were used to further investigate the stock structure of Western Australian blue threadfin populations. By increasing sample sizes from previously investigated areas: Roebuck Bay (n = 93 adults) and Eighty-mile Beach (n = 92 adults and 163 recruits from two settlement cohorts), we were able to detect subtle genetic differentiation that was previously obscured by low levels of genetic polymorphism. Therefore, the same fine-scale stock structure that has been observed elsewhere in this species also appears to exist in Western Australia. This has clear ramifications for a revised management strategy that incorporates the fine scale structuring of northwest Western Australian stocks of the blue threadfin.

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2013.03.013