Document Type

Article

Department/Program

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Publication Date

1992

Journal

Fishery Bulletin

Volume

90

Issue

4

First Page

703

Last Page

710

Abstract

Restriction-fragment length polymorphism analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was used to investigate the genetic basis of stock structure of the bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix along the U. S. mid-Atlantic coast, and to determine the degree of genetic differentiation between mid-Atlantic bluefish and Australian conspecifics. A total of 472 young-of-the-year (YOY) and yearling bluefish collected in New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina over a period of 3 years, and 19 YOY bluefish collected in New South Wales, Australia were analyzed with 9 informative restriction endonucleases. Despite considerable mtDNA variation within samples of U.S. mid-Atlantic bluefish, no significant genetic differentiation was detected among spring-spawned and summer-spawned (YOY) bluefish, YOY and yearling bluefish from different geographic locations along the mid-Atlantic coast, or yearling bluefish collected at the same location in different years. Mid-Atlantic bluefish differed from their Australian conspecifics by three or more restriction site differences, or a mean nucleotide sequence divergence of 1.96%. In addition, Australian bluefish demonstrated greatly reduced levels of mtDNA variation relative to the mid-Atlantic samples. The results of this study suggest that bluefish along the mid-Atlantic coast comprise a single genetic stock and that significant differentiation occurs among geographically disjunct populations of this widely distributed marine fish.

Keywords

Mitochondrial-Dna; Restriction Endonucleases; Genetic-Variation; Populations; Fishes; Bass

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