ISSN 10227954, Russian Journal of Genetics, 2011, Vol. 47, No. 11, pp. 1333–1344. © Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2011.
Original Russian Text © D.A. Zelenina, D.M. Shepetov, A.A. Volkov et al., 2011, published in Genetika, 2011, Vol. 47, No.11, pp. 1501–1513.
1333
INTRODUCTION
The North Atlantic is inhabited by four redfish spe
cies of the genus
Sebastes
, of which beaked redfish
Sebastes mentella
is the most abundant. The unique
feature of the
S. mentella
biology, distinguishing it
from the other members of the genus, is its adaptation
to live in the seabed layers of continental and insular
slopes, as well as at great depths in the oceanic pela
gial. Despite of the largescale studies of intraspecific
structure, carried out in the second half of the 20th
century [1–13], the population structure of beaked
redfish still remains disputable.
In the two last decades, the debates on the intraspe
cific structure of beaked redfish in North Atlantic
gained in momentum. Starting from the early 20th
century, bottom fishery of beaked redfish was per
formed on the shelf and slopes around the Faeroe
Islands, Iceland, and East Greenland. With the open
ing of pelagic fishery in the Irminger Sea in the early
1980s, ICES, with the purpose of stock management,
made a decision to distinguish the deepsea
S. men
tella
, inhabiting the shelf and slope, and oceanic
S.
mentella
, inhabiting the sea pelagial [14]. In the early
1990s, caught of the redfish aggregations shifted from
traditional depths upper than 500 m to deeper layers.
To distinguish beaked redfish from the depths below
500 m the term
pelagic deepsea S. mentella
was sug
gested [15].
In recent decade, population and species structure
of redfish from the genus
Sebastes
was examined using
a variety of genetic markers, including allozymes [16–
19], mtDNA [20, 21], RAPD markers [22], and mic
rosatellites [23–26]. Integrated data favoring the exist
ence in the Irminger Sea pelagial and the adjacent
waters of two isolated beaked redfish populations with
the habitats, differing spatially and by depth, are
reported by Cadrin et al. [27]. However, a number of
studies focused on analysis of protein polymorphism
suggested genetic homogeneity of pelagic beaked red
fish populations across the whole distribution range
and at all depths [18, 19, 28, 29]. Analysis of the mic
rosatellite polymorphism also pointed to the existence
of a single “panoceanic” population of beaked red
fish in the Irminger and Labrador seas pelagials.
The present study was motivated by the currently
existing contradictions in the understanding of the
beaked redfish population structure in the Irminger
Sea. Unlike most of microsatellite studies performed
earlier, our analysis was carried out using the samples
collected at the depths lower and upper 500 m in dif
ferent regions of the Irminger Sea and Labrador Sea
pelagials. This approach enabled detailed examination
of spatial and bathymetric genotype variation. Analy
sis of the samples collected in different years at the
same localities made it possible to perform compari
sons of the genetic characteristics of beaked redfish
between different years and to test the hypothesis on
temporal stability of the species distribution, suggested
earlier [17, 25, 26, 30].
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Fish samples
were collected in the Irminger Sea and
adjacent waters during research and research–com
mercial fisheries in 2005, 2007, and 2009. The samples
were collected during the beaked redfish feeding time
over a vast territory from
54
°
15
′
N to
63
°
12
′
N, and
from
48
°
07
′
W to
28
°
20
′
W, a t t h e d e p t h s r a n g i n g f r o m
Population Structure of Beaked Redfish (
Sebastes mentella
Travin, 1951) in the Irminger Sea and Adjacent Waters Inferred
from Microsatellite Data
D. A. Zelenina
a
, D. M. Shepetov
b
, A. A. Volkov
a
, A. E. Barmintseva
a
, S. P. Melnikov
a
, and N. S. Myuge
a
a
Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography, Moscow, 107140 Russia
email: dze167@mail.ru
b
Kol’tsov Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119334 Russia
Received July 11, 2011
Abstract
—Samples of beaked redfish from the Irminger Sea and adjacent waters were examined for polymor
phism at ten microsatellite loci. The strategy of the material collection enabled investigation of geographic,
bathymetric, and temporal variation of this species. The results did not support the evidence on spatial dif
ferentiation and temporal stability of the species distribution, favoring the idea that the water area examined
was inhabited by a single pelagic population of beaked redfish.
DOI: 10.1134/S1022795411110202
ANIMAL GENETICS
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