Population genetic structure and demographic history of the fat greenling Hexagrammos otakii

Abstract

Fat greenling (Hexagrammos otakii) is an important commercial fish in the Northwestern Pacific, being distributed along the coastal waters of the East/Japan Sea and the Yellow Sea. To investigate population genetic structure and demographic history of this species, one hundred and fifty five individuals were collected from five localities in the distribution range of the species and sequence variations in the mitochondrial genes COI, COIII-ND3-ND4L, and cytochrome b were examined. For all the genes in every sampling location, the nucleotide diversities were very low (0.001 ~ 0.005) although the haplotype diversities were relatively high, 0.55 ~ 0.81 for COI, 0.79 ~ 0.84 for COIII-ND3-ND4L, and 0.95 ~ 0.97 for cytochrome b. Hierarchical analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), the conventional population statistic FST, and exact test of population differentiation revealed no significant genetic structuring among the samples, indicating that fat greening is panmictic throughout the range of its distribution. Neutrality tests such as Tajima's D and Fu's FS statistics and mismatch distribution analyses suggested that fat greening has undergone the demographic history of population expansion during the late Pleistocene period approximately 91,000 ~ 327,000 years ago. The star-burst patterns of haplotype networks and low nucleotide diversities also indicated recent population expansion. These results help establish the fisheries management strategy for fat greenling in the Northwestern Pacific.

Population panmixia and the Pleistocene demographic expansion of spotty belly greenling Hexagrammos agrammus in the East Sea and Northwest Pacific

“…Several marine fishes around Korea and Japan exhibit a similar pattern of genetic homogeneity among populations. For example, fat greenling H. otakii, a sister species of spotty belly greenling did not show any genetic differentiation among the stocks in the Yellow Sea, the Korea strait and the East Sea in the studies of cytochrome b, COI and COIII-ND3-ND4L gene regions (Habib et al 2011). Japanese sea bass Lateolabrax japonicus and blackfin flounder Glyptocephalus stelleri form a panmictic population around the Korea and the Japan coastal waters (Liu et al 2006a;Xiao et al 2010).…”

“…In the case of a sudden expansion of a population, the rate of stochastic loss of haplotypes slows down and more haplotypes become retained than lost by random genetic drift (Avise et al 1984). This kind of genetic composition has been observed in a number of fish species including fat greenling (h = 0.69 -0.96, π = 0.002 -0.004) (Habib et al 2011), blackfin flounder (h = 0.99, π = 0.014) (Xiao et al 2010), redtile fish (h = 0.93, π = 0.008) (Nohara et al 2010), spotedtail gobby (h = 0.60 -0.95, π = 0.0025 -0.0064) (Song et. al.…”

“…Gizzard shad Konosirus punctatus and olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus seem to have separate lineages in the East Sea and the southern and west coast of Korea, respectively, probably due to the isolation of the East Sea during glacial periods and sea currents at the present time (Kim et al 2010;Gwak et al 2014). On the other hand, fat greening Hexagrammos otakii (Habib et al 2011), Japanese sea bass Lateolabrax japonicus (Liu et al 2006a), and blackfin flounder Glyptocephalus stelleri (Xiao et al 2010) exhibit panmictic population characteristics around the Korea and the Japan coastal waters due to a high level of gene flow caused by sea currents.…”

Genetic Diversity Analysis of Indian Salmon, <i>Eleutheronema tetradactylum</i> from South Asian Countries Based on Mitochondrial COI Gene Sequences

“…The high level of haplotypic diversity and low π value in E. tetradactylum populations in Bay of Bengal and Australian populations suggest that this fish could have experienced a population expansion after a period of low effective population size (Grant and Bowen, 1998). This type of genetic structure has been observed in threadfin fish, E. rhadinum (Sun et al, 2013), long-tailed hake, Macruronus magellanicus (Machado-Schiaffino and Garcia-Vazquez, 2011) and fat greenling, Hexagrammos otakii (Habib et al, 2011 population expansion in most of the E. tetradactylum populations. Moreover, the haplotype network also confirmed recent population expansion following a population bottleneck in most of the studied populations.…”

“…In addition a remarkable reduction was observed in genetic diversity of the Zhoushan population (h = 0.595 ± 0.109, π = 0.001 ± 0.001 55) compared to the Qidong (h = 0.782 ± 0.058, π = 0.00212 ± 0.0035) and Zhuhai populations (h = 0.780 ± 0.059, π = 0.00222 ± 0.00282). Genetic variation within populations can be reduced through genetic drift or bottleneck in the particular population Habib et al, 2011). An earlier study (Chang et al, 2012) reported that, overfishing and concomitant habitat loss in this Fig.…”