Current conservation genetics: building an ecological approach to the synthesis of molecular and quantitative genetic methods

Although neutral molecular markers have long been important tools for describing genetic variation in threatened fish species, many of the most critical questions in conservation relate more to quantitative genetic variation than to neutral markers. Quantitative genetic studies are typically expensive and time‐consuming to conduct, especially in some of the long‐lived vertebrates of conservation concern. The present review of recent literature in fish conservation genetics examines the traditional role of molecular studies in describing conservation units and providing indirect inference about local adaptation and adaptive potential. Of special interest are approaches that use a combination of molecular and quantitative genetic methods. Such studies are likely to provide important new insights into many conservation‐related problems. The review also explores how increasing interest in non‐neutral molecular markers is contributing to our understanding of the geographic scale and evolutionary importance of local adaptation in threatened populations. It is increasingly clear that advanced genetic technologies for the exploration of neutral and non‐neutral molecular variation are leading to a fundamental shift in the way complex phenotypic traits are studied. This new synthesis of methods will have dramatic implications for fish conservation genetics and biology in general.