Population genomics reveals a mismatch between management and biological units in green abalone (Haliotis fulgens)

Abstract

Effective fishery management strategies should be based on stock delimitation and knowledge of the spatial scale at which species are distributed. However, a mismatch often occurs between biological and management units of fishery resources. The green abalone (Haliotis fulgens) supports an important artisanal fishery in the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula (BCP), Mexico, which has shown a declining tendency despite the several management measures. Thus, the aim of this study was to characterize the spatial patterns of neutral genomic variation of green abalone along the BCP to test whether the genomic structure patterns support the current green abalone management areas. To test this hypothesis, a set of 2,170 putative neutral single nucleotide polymorphisms discovered by a double digest restriction-site associated DNA approach was used on 10 locations along the BCP. The results revealed a population structure with three putative groups: Guadalupe Island and northern and southern BCP locations. The contemporary gene flow might be explained by local oceanographic features, where it is bidirectional within the southern region but with a predominant southward flow from the northern region. These findings indicated that the administrative areas did not match the biological units of H. fulgens fishery; hence, the stock assessment and management areas should be revised.

Genomic Stock Structure of the Marine Teleost Tarakihi (Nemadactylus macropterus) Provides Evidence of Potential Fine-Scale Adaptation and a Temperature-Associated Cline Amid Panmixia

“…Previously unknown population structure has been detected in several marine species using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) datasets. They include the American lobster (Benestan et al, 2015), yellowfin tuna (Pecoraro et al, 2018), silky shark (Kraft et al, 2020), green abalone (Mejía-Ruíz et al, 2020), and California market squid (Cheng et al, 2021). Even when populations display little to no neutral genomic differentiation, adaptive population structure can be detected through outlierbased methods [e.g., albacore (Vaux et al, 2021)] or environment association methods [e.g., American lobster (Benestan et al, 2016), summer flounder (Hoey and Pinsky, 2018), or greenlip abalone (Sandoval-Castillo et al, 2018)].…”

Incorporating evolutionary based tools in cephalopod fisheries management

“…However, genomic approaches offer readily employed tools to identify distinct stocks even in cases where traditional genetic tools show no structure (Vendrami et al 2017). That would allow recognizing the mismatches between biological stocks and assessment and management units that can cause population decline (Pita et al 2015a;Casey et al 2016;Gonçalves da Silva et al 2020;Mejía-Ruíz et al 2020;Timm et al 2020). If panmictic metapopulation is harvested differently in two or more geopolitical areas, those management practices will have interconnected effects, and new data indeed shows that catches of transboundary species decline faster (Palacios-Abrantes et al 2020).…”

“…Moreover, in the case of highly migratory squid species, genomic data could enable monitoring of migrations and correct identification of stocks independent of their geographical or temporal presence, or could facilitate locating spawning grounds. High resolution insights into connectivity of explored stocks can provide fishery assessment and management with information on stocks recruitment patterns, source-sink dynamics and demographic (in)dependence, and thus indirectly also on the long-term stock resilience due to replenishment upon local environmental perturbations (Waples and Naish 2009;Cisneros-Mata et al 2019;Silva et al 2019b;Cheng et al 2020;Lee and O'Malley 2020;Mejía-Ruíz et al 2020;Timm et al 2020). In addition, obtained fine scale patterns of stock connectivity can be very useful in designing spatial management tools (Katsanevakis et al 2011;Domínguez-Contreras et al 2018).…”

Genomic stock structure of the marine teleost tarakihi (Nemadactylus macropterus) provides evidence of fine-scale adaptation and a temperature-associated cline amid panmixia

“…Previously unknown population structure has been detected in several marine species using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) datasets. They include the American lobster (Benestan et al, 2015), yellowfin tuna (Pecoraro et al, 2018), silky shark (Kraft et al, 2020), green abalone (Mejía-Ruíz et al, 2020), and California market squid (Cheng et al, 2021). Even when populations display little to no neutral genomic differentiation, adaptive population structure can be detected through outlier-based methods (e.g.…”