Analysis of microsatellite loci variations in herring (Clupea pallasii marisalbi) from the White Sea

Introgressive hybridization between the Atlantic and Pacific herrings (Clupea harengus and C. pallasii) in the north of Europe

“…The discovery of inter-species introgression is intriguing considering the earlier evidence of intra-species population differentiation in the North European Pacific herring both in genetic markers and in biological characteristics such as growth rates and seasonal breeding biology (Jørstad et al Table 4 Diversity estimates for the introgressed and non-introgressed mtDNA Nucleotide diversity (π) and haplotype (h) diversity estimates are from the cytochrome b gene (1,131 bp) and are given separately for the nonintrogressed component of the regional gene pool (original C. pallasii lineage) and for the introgressed C. harengus lineage, and for the total regional pool (All), as well as for the reference Atlantic and Pacific herrings (reference data from Laakkonen et al 2013) Species and sample C. pallasii mitochondria C. harengus mitochondria All 1991, 1994Lajus 2002;Semenova et al 2009Semenova et al , 2013. A reassessment of previous allozyme data (Fig.…”

“…Runnström 1941;Svetovidov 1952;Lie et al 1978;Lajus 2002) and the previous studies on their population genetics (Jørstad et al 1991(Jørstad et al , 1994Turan et al 1998;Semenova et al 2009Semenova et al , 2013, the possibility of inter-species gene flow as a factor contributing to this variation had not been considered so far. While the inferred levels of introgression are mostly low, locally isolated fjord stocks (Balsfjord and potentially Rossfjordvatn) may also feature strongly introgressed genomes, with up to 20-50 % alien component to separate them from the regionally predominant Atlantic herring.…”