Principle Investigator:

• Main Authors: David Berlinsky, Associate Professor
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: atlantic cod
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.432.7191; http://www.northeastconsortium.org/pdfs/awards_2006/Berlinsky 06/Berlinsky 06 Final Report.pdf

fisherman and scientists from UNH and NYU to investigate stock definitions for Atlantic cod using DNA markers. Cod in U.S. waters are currently managed as two stocks: 1) a Gulf of Maine stock and 2) a Georges Bank and south stock. This designation is decades old and warrants reevaluation in light of concerns that fisheries management units may not reflect biologically meaningful population units. To address this, we used 10 microsatellite and 6 SNP markers to characterize the population genetic structure of cod in U.S. waters. We found significant differentiation among temporally and spatially divergent populations of cod (global F ST = 0.0044, G ´ ST = 0.0144), primarily stemming from two non-neutral loci, and strong evidence for a population structure that contradicts the current two-stock management model. Our results indicate that cod in U.S. waters are broadly structured into three groups: 1) a northern spring spawning coastal complex in the Gulf of Maine (GOM), 2) a southern complex consisting of winter-spawning inshore GOM, offshore GOM and sites south of Cape Cod, MA, and 3) a Georges Bank population. The strongest differentiation occurs between populations in the northern and southern complex (F ST = 0.0054- 0.0156), some of which spawn in the same bays in different seasons. This population genetic structure is stable over a 5-year period. We suggest