Preservation of heritable ecological diversity within species and populations is a key challenge for managing natural resources and wild populations. Salmonid fish are iconic and socio-economically indispensable species for commercial,aquaculture, and recreational fisheries across the globe. Many salmonids are known to exhibit ecological divergence within species, or including distinct feeding ecotypes within the same lakes. Here we used 5559 SNPs,derived from RAD sequencing, to perform population genetic comparisons between two dietary ecotypes of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in Jo-Jo Lake, and Alaska (USA). We tested the standing speculation that these two ecotypes are currently diverging as a result of adaptation to distinct dietary niches; results support earlier conclusions of a single panmictic population. The RAD sequence data revealed 40 new SNPs not previously detected in the species,and our sequence data can be used in future studies of ecotypic diversity in salmonid species.
Source: usgs.gov