Microsatellite Variation Indicates Population Genetic Structure of Bocaccio

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The California groundfish fishery has recently experienced a severe decline in both the biomass and harvest of bocaccio Sebastes paucispinis. The conservation and management actions necessary to reverse this trend require biological data, including information on the population structure, that reflect the basis of productivity. Using microsatellite loci, we conducted a population genetic analysis of bocaccio with samples from waters ranging from British Columbia to Baja California. A log-likelihood test of homogeneity of allele frequencies over the entire data set was significant, although partitioning variation by FST analysis revealed no statistically significant geographic divergence among populations, and no evidence of a geographic cline of structure was detected in a Mantel test. By partitioning the heterogeneity among populations into homogeneous groups of adjacent populations, we observed structure related to geographic location that could be consistent with the divisions of current regimes among the California Current system, a neighborhood model of isolation and limited gene flow, or both. Resolving more detailed structure was not possible with the numbers of samples and collections available, but our observations indicate that caution should be exercised in making conservation or management decisions that do not consider genetic structure or that assume its absence.
Funding Information
  • U.S. Geological Survey
  • Biological Resource Division
  • Alaska Sea Grant College Program
  • National Fisheries Institute