Comparison of the Assignment Testing Capabilities of the Population Structure Programs BAPS and STRUCTURE Using Microsatellite Data from Tiger Sharks

Comparison of the Assignment Testing Capabilities of the Population Structure Programs BAPS and STRUCTURE Using Microsatellite Data from Tiger Sharks

Although the practice of shark finning has been banned in multiple oceans worldwide, the practice continues to proliferate, with as many as 73 million sharks being killed each year for their fins. Since the legality of shark finning varies from ocean to ocean, methods to accurately determine not only the species of shark, but also the origin, need to be developed to help curtail this practice. This problem can be addressed through assignment testing—statistical methods that utilize genetic information to determine the population origin of individuals. Various software programs have been developed for population structure analysis. The goal of this study is to compare the methods and assignment accuracy of two popular programs, STRUCTURE and BAPS, by analyzing microsatellite data collected from Tiger sharks worldwide. We thank Andrea Bernard of the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center for providing the genetic data and advisement on the usage of the software packages.