Annual ice retreat in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas, which has occurred earlier in the past decades resulting in longer ice-free seasons and warmer ocean temperatures, is producing a cascade of ecological effects, and may open Arctic waters to commercial fishing and oil exploration. Baseline knowledge of population structure of a species is critical to developing strategies for management and conservation. There is little information for the saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis), an abundant forage fish inhabiting the coastlines of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans. We examined saffron cod population genetic structure with data from nine microsatellite loci designed to describe the genetic compositions of and variation among 40 collections of saffron cod from four regions (northwestern Alaska, Gulf of Alaska, western Pacific Ocean, and Gulf of Anadyr). The northwestern Alaska collections (Norton Sound and Chukchi Sea) exhibited little genetic divergence. The Gulf of Anadyr collection differed from other regions but was most similar to those of northwestern Alaska. The collections from the western Pacific Ocean (Sakhalin Island and Hokkaido Island) differed genetically, but not to the extent they did from other regions. Gulf of Alaska collections (Kodiak Island and Prince William Sound) comprised a lineage that was distinct from all of the other areas, including the geographically adjacent northwestern Alaska collections. The absence of genetic structure in northwestern Alaska probably reflects their recent expansion into previously unavailable habitat that became available after the Last Glacial Maximum (~ 16,000 years ago). Tracking and predicting the likely expansion of the eurythermal saffron cod may have parallels to its postglacial colonization.

中文翻译：

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藏红花鳕鱼 Eleginus gracilis (Tilesius 1810) 种群遗传结构的检验

白令海和楚科奇海北部每年发生的冰层消退，在过去几十年中发生得更早，导致无冰季节延长和海洋温度升高，正在产生一连串的生态效应，并可能使北极水域的商业捕鱼和石油勘探开放. 物种种群结构的基线知识对于制定管理和保护战略至关重要。关于藏红花鳕鱼（Eleginus gracilis）的信息很少，这是一种栖息在北太平洋和北冰洋海岸线的丰富饲料鱼。我们使用来自 9 个微卫星位点的数据检查了藏红花鳕鱼种群的遗传结构，这些数据旨在描述来自四个地区（阿拉斯加西北部、阿拉斯加湾、西太平洋、和阿纳德尔湾）。阿拉斯加西北部的集合（诺顿湾和楚科奇海）几乎没有遗传差异。阿纳德尔湾的藏品不同于其他地区，但与阿拉斯加西北部的藏品最为相似。来自西太平洋（库页岛和北海道岛）的藏品在基因上存在差异，但与其他地区的差异不大。阿拉斯加湾藏品（科迪亚克岛和威廉王子湾）包括一个与所有其他地区不同的谱系，包括地理上相邻的阿拉斯加西北部藏品。阿拉斯加西北部缺乏遗传结构可能反映了它们最近扩展到以前不可用的栖息地，这些栖息地在末次盛冰期（约 16,000 年前）之后变得可用。