Advancing our understanding of the connectivity, evolution and management of marine lobsters through genetics

Abstract

The genomic revolution has provided powerful insights into the biology and ecology 20 of many non-model organisms. Genetic tools have been increasingly applied to marine 21 lobster research in recent years and have improved our understanding of species delimitation 22 and population connectivity. High resolution genomic markers are just beginning to be applied to lobsters and are now starting to revolutionise our understanding of fine spatial and temporal scales of population connectivity and adaptation to environmental conditions. Lobsters play an important role in the ecosystem and many species are commercially exploited but many aspects of their biology is still largely unknown. Genetics is a powerful tool that can further contribute to our understanding of their ecology and evolution and assist management. Here we illustrate how recent genetic advancements are (1) leading to a step connectivity and recruitment, (3) revealing insights into ecological processes and can (4) potentially revolutionise management of this commercially important group. We discuss how improvements in sequencing technologies and statistical methods for genetic data analyses combined with increased sampling efforts and careful sampling design have transformed our 34 understanding of lobsters biology in recent years. We also highlight possible future directions 35 in the application of genomic tools to lobster research that can aid management, in particular, 36 the close-kin-mark-recapture method. Finally, we identify gaps and challenges in lobster 37 research, such as the lack of any reference genomes and predictions on how lobsters will respond to future environmental conditions.

Global drivers of recent diversification in a marine species complex

“…Advances in next‐generation sequencing (NGS) now provide the opportunity to investigate genome‐wide patterns of differentiation along the speciation continuum, allowing the better detection of changes as two lineages diverge from one another on the path to reproductive isolation (Feder et al, 2012). In particular, these methods provide effective tools for species with no reference genomes (Catchen et al, 2017), which is the case for many marine species including rock lobsters (Silva et al, 2019). This technology has also allowed the integration of genomic and environmental data, which can be used for testing the hypothesis that selection is more efficient than drift in opposing the homogenizing effects of migration (Manel & Holderegger, 2013).…”

Ageing European lobsters (Homarus gammarus) using DNA methylation of evolutionarily conserved ribosomal DNA

“…Therefore, a reliable and accurate ageing method is urgently needed for crustacean fisheries management and would have considerable positive economic and conservation impacts. In a recent review of future genetic tools for lobster management, DNA methylation‐based markers were highlighted as a possible solution to age estimation (Silva et al, 2019).…”

Incorporating evolutionary based tools in cephalopod fisheries management

“…The use of genetic tools is not new in fisheries sciences, and over the decades a variety of genetic markers (e.g. allozymes, microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA) have been used to analyze population structure of commercially exploited marine species (Ward 2000;Silva et al 2019a). Those studies laid the ground for important mapping of various fished stocks (Hauser and Carvalho 2008;Ovenden et al 2015).…”