Search

In order to ascertain the taxonomic status of the Ariake Sea population of Japanese grenadier anchovy, Coilia nasus, and assess the contemporary possible genetic barrier between the west and east coastal waters of the East China Sea, we used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to detect the genetic structure of C. nasus, in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. Eighty-one individuals of C. nasus were collected from five locations and 12 individuals of Coilia mystus were sampled from the Yangtze River Estuary. A total of 371 loci were detected by five primer combinations, 310 of which were polymorphic (83.56%). Analysis of molecular variation (AMOVA) and pairwise fixation index (FST) revealed significant genetic differentiation among five samples, indicating limited gene flow among populations. The dendrogram for populations by neighbor-joining (NJ) cluster analysis provided evidence of a clear relationship between genetic and geographic patterns, supporting significant genetic differentiation between China coastal populations and Ariake Sea populations. Compared to the genetic divergence between C. nasus and C. mystus, the level of genetic differentiation between China and the Ariake Sea populations of C. nasus is obvious below the species level, indicating isolated populations of C. nasus in the Ariake Sea. Isolation by distance analysis revealed that direct ocean distance with deep-water at the continental slope and high salinity between west and east coastal waters of the East China Sea served as major physical barrier to C. nasus, supporting the coastal dispersal pattern in this estuarine species, and rejecting offshore dispersal strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus niphonius is a commercially important species in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea, but there is limited knowledge of its genetic population structure. In order to detect its genetic structure , sequence variation of the first hypervariable segment of the control region was analyzed among eight populations of S. niphonius from the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. A total of 119 polymorphic sites were detected in the 505-bp segment of the control region among 134 individuals of S. niphonius, defining 112 haplotypes. Mean haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity for the eight populations were 0.9963 ± 0.0017 and 0.0236 ± 0.0119, respectively. As expected, analysis of molecular variance detected no significant differences at all hierarchical levels, and most of the conventional population ΦST statistics were negative, indicating that no significant population genetic structure exists in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. Moreover, the exact test of differentiation supported the null hypothesis that S. niphonius within the East China Sea and Yellow Sea constitutes a panmictic mtDNA gene pool. Neutrality tests and mismatch distribution revealed that S. niphonius underwent population expansion in the late Pleistocene. Strong dispersal capacity of larvae and adults, long-distance migrations, and ocean currents in the studied area could be the reasons for genetic homogeneity in this species in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. Insufficient time to accumulate genetic variation might be another explanation for the lack of genetic structure in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The genetic diversity and population structure of the small yellow croaker (Larimichthys polyactis) were investigated based on seven microsatellite markers. Two hundred and twenty-six individuals were collected from ten locations from the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea. Relatively high genetic variation (He = 0.826–0.873) and very low genetic differentiation (F st = 0.001–0.029) between populations were checked, which were attributed by high mutation rate, large population size, wide distribution and diverse habitats. L. polyactis had not undergone recent genetic bottleneck events, which was supported by Wilcoxon signed-rank test and mode-shift indicator of allele frequency distribution. UPGMA tree revealed that the cluster results had no connection with isolation by distance. The knowledge on genetic diversity and population structure will be crucial to establish appropriate fishery management for the species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]