Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-14-2014
Publication Title
BMC Genetics
Keywords
Roundscale spearfish, White marlin, Genetic population structure, Genetic diversity, Effective population size, Tetrapturus georgii, Kajikia albida
ISSN
1471-2156
Volume
15
Issue/No.
141
First Page
1
Last Page
13
Abstract
Background: Misidentifications between exploited species may lead to inaccuracies in population assessments, with potentially irreversible conservation ramifications if overexploitation of either species is occurring. A notable showcase is provided by the realization that the roundscale spearfish (Tetrapturus georgii), a recently validated species, has been historically misidentified as the morphologically very similar and severely overfished white marlin (Kajikia albida) (IUCN listing: Vulnerable). In effect, no information exists on the population status and evolutionary history of the enigmatic roundscale spearfish, a large, highly vagile and broadly distributed pelagic species. We provide the first population genetic evaluation of the roundscale spearfish, utilizing nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA sequence markers. Furthermore, we re-evaluated existing white marlin mitochondrial genetic data and present our findings in a comparative context to the roundscale spearfish.
Results: Microsatellite and mitochondrial (control region) DNA markers provided mixed evidence for roundscale spearfish population differentiation between the western north and south Atlantic regions, depending on marker-statistical analysis combination used. Mitochondrial DNA analyses provided strong signals of historical population growth for both white marlin and roundscale spearfish, but higher genetic diversity and effective female population size (1.5-1.9X) for white marlin.
Conclusions: The equivocal indications of roundscale spearfish population structure, combined with a smaller effective female population size compared to the white marlin, already a species of concern, suggests that a species-specific and precautionary management strategy recognizing two management units is prudent for this newly validated billfish.
NSUWorks Citation
Andrea M. Bernard, Mahmood S. Shivji, Eric Prince, Fabio H.V. Hazin, Freddy Arocha, Andres Domingo, and Kevin A. Feldheim. 2014. Comparative Population Genetics and Evolutionary History of Two Commonly Misidentified Billfishes of Management and Conservation Concern .BMC Genetics , (141) : 1 -13. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/492.
ResearcherID
G-4080-2013
DOI
10.1186/s12863-014-0141-4
Included in
Genetics and Genomics Commons, Marine Biology Commons, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons
Comments
©Bernard et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014