Circumpolar sampling reveals high genetic connectivity of Antarctic toothfish across their spatial distribution

• Published in: Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries
• Main Authors: Maschette, D, Wotherspoon, S, Polanowski, A, Deagle, B, Welsford, D, Ziegler, P
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Kluwer Academic Publ 2023
• Subjects: Agricultural; Veterinary and Food Sciences; Fisheries sciences; Fisheries management; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Ross Sea; Antarc*; Antarctic Toothfish
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-023-09756-9; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/155000

Antarctic Toothfish are a circumpolar specieswhich are targeted in multiple fisheries aroundAntarctica covering nine statistical areas within theConvention for the Conservation of Antarctic MarineLiving Resources. Despite this, it is still unclearwhether the species forms a single stock across its circumpolardistribution, shows a pattern of isolation bydistance, or exhibits discrete stock structure betweendifferent regions. Recent genetics studies of Antarctictoothfish have shown connectivity between two areas(Ross Sea and Antarctic Peninsula), but earlier studieswith smaller number of markers produced inconsistentresults with regards to genetic connectivitybetween other geographic locations. Here we presenta range-wide population genetic study of Antarctictoothfish using > 11,000 nuclear single nucleotidepolymorphisms from 715 fish collected. Our resultsindicate that genetic diversity of the Antarctic toothfishis very low, with only 0.1% of genetic variabilityassociated with geographic location. Multiple clusteringmethods, both supervised and unsupervised, indicatedno distinct breeding populations. These resultsare consistent with current theories of egg and larvaldispersal by the predominant Antarctic currents.