Premium
Genetic Population Structure of White Grunt in the Southeastern United States
Author(s) -
O'Donnell Timothy P.,
Reichert Marcel J. M.,
Darden Tanya L.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
north american journal of fisheries management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1548-8675
pISSN - 0275-5947
DOI - 10.1002/nafm.10306
Subject(s) - geography , fishery , population , stock assessment , bay , fishing , ecology , biology , archaeology , demography , sociology
The White Grunt Haemulon plumierii is a reef‐associated coastal fish species in the western Atlantic Ocean that occurs from the Chesapeake Bay south through the Gulf of Mexico and along the eastern coast of Brazil. In U.S. waters, there are recreational and commercial fisheries for White Grunt, but there are currently no size regulations in the recreational fishery and no size or trip regulations in the commercial fishery. A stock assessment for White Grunt is necessary prior to enacting any potential future regulations, and informed stock boundaries must first be delineated. Studies finding regional differences in genetic population structure and growth rates for White Grunt in the southeastern USA have resulted in uncertainty of stock definition. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the genetic population structure of White Grunt in the southeastern USA and the U.S. Virgin Islands using 10 microsatellite markers. Pairwise genetic distances, allele frequency distributions, principal coordinates analysis, and Bayesian clustering results indicated that White Grunt should be separated into four distinct populations among the regions sampled: the Carolinas (North Carolina and South Carolina); southeast Florida, including the Florida Keys (from Cape Canaveral to Key West); eastern Gulf of Mexico (western coast of Florida north of Key West); and the U.S. Caribbean. The genetic differentiation results presented here, along with regional growth studies, warrant the management of White Grunt as three separate stocks in the Atlantic Ocean bordering the continental USA : the Carolinas, southeast Florida and Florida Keys, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, with at least one other separate stock in the Caribbean Sea.