Life History, Morphology, and Electrophoretic Characteristics of Five Allopatric Stocks of Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) in the Great Lakes Region

Abstract

Ecological, morphological, and electrophoretic variation among five allopatric Ontario lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) stocks was studied. The stocks differ in terms of diet, growth rate, movement patterns, fecundity, and egg and larval size. Morphologically, the five stocks were also different for characters such as number of gill rakers, number of pyloric ceca, and in size, adjusted for fork length, of the tail, dorsal fin, and the eye. Discriminant functions, derived from body measurements and meristic counts, classified specimens accurately into their lakes of origin. Highly significant allele frequency differences were found at 6 of the 32 electrophoretic loci examined. Standard genetic distances, derived from electrophoretic allele frequency differences, corresponded roughly to the order in which these stocks became isolated following retreat of the last continental glaciation. The genetic distance of the Opeongo stock from the other stocks is about one order of magnitude larger than the genetic distances among the other stocks. The Opeongo stock is also somewhat unusual ecologically, having different egg size and fecundity characteristics compared with the other stocks and being a member of a sympatric dwarf/normal pair. Dendrograms, derived from the Mahanalobis distances for the meristic variation and the Nei genetic distances for the electrophoretic variation, showed similar branching patterns, but the branching patterns for the morphometric versus the biochemical variation were different. A significant part of the morphometric variation among the stocks was related to differences in growth rates of the stocks, most body measurements being negatively correlated with growth rate. The Mahanalobis distances for the meristic variation (including pyloric ceca counts) were correlated with the standard genetic distances from the electrophoretic data. The ecological, morphological, and biochemical variation among the stocks, in relation to local adaptation, is discussed.Key words: lake whitefish, stock concept, genotype, phenotype, ecology, morphology, meristics, multivariate analysis, electrophoresis, growth, diet, fecundity

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