Suchergebnisse

Walleye (Sander vitreus) is a popular sportfish threatened by overexploitation, habitat destruction, and loss of genetic integrity due to non-native walleye stocking. Previous studies have identified a genetically distinct lineage of walleye in the Mobile River Basin, but further work is needed to assess population structure and introgression among this southern lineage and northern populations. Here we generated 2782 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to characterize the genetic uniqueness of southern walleye. We also found strong evidence for a historical declining population trend with reduced genetic diversity and effective population size in a southern walleye population of conservation importance. A 68-SNP panel was developed for rapid identification of genetic integrity and hybrid classification among northern and southern walleye, enabling us to identify an anthropogenic hybrid zone resulting from the previous introduction of northern walleye into the Black Warrior River drainage, Alabama. Our results highlight the need for conservation management of southern walleye in the Mobile River Basin, with our 68-SNP assay already being implemented in ongoing stream survey and captive breeding programs. ; Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) award; Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station through the US Department of Agriculture Hatch Program ; This work was supported by funding to the Southeastern Fish Genetics Cooperative (E. Peatman, Director), particularly support from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. H.Z. was supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) award. E.H. was supported in part by the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station through the US Department of Agriculture Hatch Program. This is contribution No. 5079 from NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. We thank all those individuals who have provided walleye samples or assisted with sample collections. We thank Balaji Chattopadhyay for the assistance in our demography analysis and Matthew Neilson (USGS) for providing us walleye range shapefiles. All authors declare no conflict of interest. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee