Dipping into fish genetics | Researchers at the Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island are pursuing the use of genetics to better understand the stability of fish populations
Photo/Jim Kozubek
Andy Shedlock, a staff scientist from Harvard University, is teaching a molecular biology class at the marine lab on Appledore Island to better understand genotyping and fish populations and their habitats
Researchers at the Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island, one of nine islands in the archipelago chain six miles off the coast of Maine, are pursuing the use of genetics to better understand the stability of fish populations.
Andy Shedlock, a staff scientist at Harvard University, and a visiting instructor, says the lab will work with the Hubbard Center for Genomics at the University of New Hampshire to use genomics at the site.
It will be the first push to bring genotyping and sequencing to the lab, which brings together scientists and undergraduates for oceanic research. Shedlock says the project will use genotyping to gain insights into the diversity of fish populations and track how “genetic variations correlate to ecological conditions.”
“Commercial fish are highly vulnerable to dynamics of near shore environments and the influences of population genetics,” Shedlock says. “The genetics of near shore environments is not well understood.”
Shedlock says the commercial fishing industry has long concentrated on simple fish counts, when the genetic diversity of fish and their relationships to micro-ecology is the important thing to study. The homogenization of fish genomes can make them highly susceptible to disease or threats, he says.
“Unless we pursue a population-genetics model of fish, we have no idea how unstable commercial fish populations are,” Shedlock says. The project will look at the genetic diversity within fish populations, and seek to better characterize micro-ecology in near shore habitats and to connect with reproductive rates.
“We don’t have good data on microscopic forms of biological invaders. We’ll set out to develop a baseline understanding of genetic variation and ecological relationships,” he says. “The project will track which micro-habitats are more or less important to differential survival rates.”
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