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Quantitative and qualitative measures of fish health and welfare are essential for management of both wild capture and aquaculture species. These measures include morphometric body condition indices, energetic condition and aquaculture operational welfare indicators (OWIs). Measures vary in ease of measurement (and may require destructive sampling), and it is critical to know how well they correlate with fish health and welfare so appropriate management decisions can be based on them. Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) is a new farming species that needs nondestructive OWIs to be developed and validated. In this study, we developed a C. lumpus fin damage score. Four different body condition indexes based on individual weight relative to either length-weight relationships or relative to other fish in its local environment were tested (using model selection) as predictors of individual fin damage. Results showed severity of fin damage was predicted by small size relative to the other individuals in the tank or cage. Body condition based on length-weight relationship was not found to predict fin damage, indicating that using established indices from fisheries or from other species would not predict welfare risks from fin damage. Implications are that especially in hatchery conditions grading will improve the condition index, and is expected to mitigate fin damage, but that low weight at length was not of use in predicting fin damage. Model selection to choose between a suite of possible indices proved powerful and should be considered in other applications where an easily measured index is needed to correlate with other health measures., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Fisheries Society of the British Isles.)

This study investigated the development of a quantitative method for distinguishing stock components of Icelandic cod Gadus morhua based on visual examination of morphology. The stock is known to be structured into genetically distinct geographic components (north and south of Iceland) and behavioural types that spawn sympatrically. Differences in morphology were tested between locations, genotypes (a proxy for behaviour) and sexes. Results show morphological markers on the head, fins and body of G. morhua that are correlated with the sex, genotype of the fish at the pantophysin (pan-I) locus and the location at which the fish were caught. Females were found to have relatively deep bodies, and the pan-I(BB) genotype (associated with deep-water feeding behaviour) have greater gaps between their fins. Overall, morphology is more useful for distinguishing sympatric genotypes but less powerful at identifying genetically distinct geographic sub-populations, perhaps because counter-gradient evolution reduces phenotypic differences even with an underlying genetic cause., (© 2012 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology © 2012 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.)

There is increasing recognition of intraspecific diversity and population structure within marine fish species, yet there is little direct evidence of the isolating mechanisms that maintain it or documentation of its ecological extent. We analyzed depth and temperature histories collected by electronic data storage tags retrieved from 104 Atlantic cod at liberty ≥1 year to evaluate a possible isolating mechanisms maintaining population structure within the Icelandic cod stock. This stock consists of two distinct behavioral types, resident coastal cod and migratory frontal cod, each occurring within two geographically distinct populations. Despite being captured together on the same spawning grounds, we show the behavioral types seem reproductively isolated by fine-scale differences in spawning habitat selection, primarily depth. Additionally, the different groups occupied distinct seasonal thermal and bathymetric niches that generally demonstrated low levels of overlap throughout the year. Our results indicate that isolating mechanisms, such as differential habitat selection during spawning, might contribute to maintaining diversity and fine-scale population structure in broadcast-spawning marine fishes.