Conservation of adaptive genetic diversity : insights & challenges(Sustainable Yield and Population Conservation for Marine Organisms from the Point of View of Genetic Resources,International Workshop in Faculty of Agricultural Science and Field Science Center in Tohoku University 2008)

Original Pape

Cross-generational costs of compensatory growth in nine-spined sticklebacks

Compensatory growth (CG) is a form of phenotypic plasticity allowing individuals’ growth trajectories to rebound after a period of resource limitation, but little is known about the reproductive and cross-generational costs of CG. We studied the potential costs of CG by exposing female nine-spined sticklebacks Pungitius pungitius to 1) high (favourable), 2) low (stressful), and 3) recovery (initially stressful, subsequently favourable) feeding treatments, and quantified the effects of these treatments on female reproductive traits (clutch, egg and yolk size), and on the size of their offspring. The low feeding treatment reduced female size relative to the high and recovery feeding treatments, which produced equally large females. Hence, females from the recovery treatment demonstrated CG and full growth compensation. Feeding treatments had significant effects on clutch, yolk, egg and larval size, also when the effect of female size was controlled for. However, these effects came about mostly because females from the low feeding treatment produced small clutches with large eggs (containing little yolk) and larvae, whereas females from the recovery feeding treatment produced as large clutches, eggs (with similar amounts of yolk) and larvae as females from the high feeding treatment. Yet, structural equation modelling revealed that while a direct effect of female size on offspring size was positive in the low and high feeding treatments, it was negative in the recovery feeding treatment, independently of egg and clutch size. This indicates a cross-generational tradeoff between female and offspring sizes in the recovery feeding treatment. Also the tradeoff between clutch and larval size was more pronounced in recovery than in low or high feeding treatments. Hence, apart from demonstrating that environmental influences experienced by females during their development have the potential to influence their size, fecundity and reproductive traits, the results also provide evidence for complex cross-generational costs of recovery growth

FishResp : R package and GUI application for analysis of aquatic respirometry data

FishResp is a user-friendly tool for calculating oxygen uptake of aquatic organisms. The aim of the software is to improve the quality of metabolic rate estimates based on a straightforward pipeline: background respiration correction, detection of mechanical problems, conduction of QC tests, and filtration based on user-defined criteria. Abstract Intermittent-flow respirometry is widely used to measure oxygen uptake rates and subsequently estimate aerobic metabolic rates of aquatic animals. However, the lack of a standard quality-control software to detect technical problems represents a potential impediment to comparisons across studies in the field of evolutionary and conservation physiology. Here, we introduce FishResp', a versatile R package and its graphical implementation for quality-control and filtering of raw respirometry data. Our goal is to provide a straightforward, cross-platform and free software to help improve the quality and comparability of metabolic rate estimates for reducing methodological fragmentation in the field of aquatic respirometry. FishResp accepts data from various respirometry systems, allows users to detect potential mechanical problems which can occur during oxygen uptake measurements (e.g. chamber leaking, poor water circulation), and offers six options to correct raw data for microbial oxygen consumption. The software performs filtering of raw data based on user criteria, and produces accurate and unbiased estimates of absolute and mass-specific metabolic rates. Using data from three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata), we demonstrate the virtues of FishResp, highlighting the importance of detecting mechanical problems and correcting measurements for background respiration.Peer reviewe

High Fidelity - No Evidence for Extra-Pair Paternity in Siberian Jays (Perisoreus infaustus)

Peer reviewe

Sex-specific population structure, natural selection, and linkage disequilibrium in a wild bird population as revealed by genome-wide microsatellite analyses

Peer reviewe

Environmental enrichment, sexual dimorphism, and brain size in sticklebacks

Evidence for phenotypic plasticity in brain size and the size of different brain parts is widespread, but experimental investigations into this effect remain scarce and are usually conducted using individuals from a single population. As the costs and benefits of plasticity may differ among populations, the extent of brain plasticity may also differ from one population to another. In a common garden experiment conducted with three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) originating from four different populations, we investigated whether environmental enrichment (aquaria provided with structural complexity) caused an increase in the brain size or size of different brain parts compared to controls (bare aquaria). We found no evidence for a positive effect of environmental enrichment on brain size or size of different brain parts in either of the sexes in any of the populations. However, in all populations, males had larger brains than females, and the degree of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in relative brain size ranged from 5.1 to 11.6% across the populations. Evidence was also found for genetically based differences in relative brain size among populations, as well as for plasticity in the size of different brain parts, as evidenced by consistent size differences among replicate blocks that differed in their temperature.Peer reviewe

Genetic differentiation, effective population size and gene flow in marine fishes : implications for stock management

Many commercially exploited marine fish and mollusc species exhibit no or a low degree of genetic differentiation in neutral marker genes. This lack of genetic differentiation, typically attributed to high degree of gene flow in marine environments, has sometimes supported the thinking that genetically indistinguishable stocks can be managed as being one panmictic population. Recent comparative studies of neutral marker gene and quantitative trait differentiation in a wide variety of taxa - including several marine organisms - show that a high degree of genetic differentiation (as measured by Q_) in ecologically and economically important traits is a common place occurrence, even when the degree of differentiation in neutral marker genes (as measured by F_) is low or absent. In fact, among the empirical studies made so far, the outcome Q_>F_ is pervasive. This accords with the increasing evidence that natal homing and self-replenishment of local populations may be more common in marine habitats than previously anticipated. If so, the low degree of genetic differentiation in neutral genetic markers could be a simple consequence of the large effective population size (N_e) of many marine populations, effectively buffering them against differentiation due to genetic drift. However, genetic markers linked to parts of the genome under directional selection should readily diverge in allele frequencies especially when N_e is high. In fact, several recent studies have discovered that such loci provide a way to differentiate among stocks undifferentiated in neutral marker genes. Hence, the study of adaptive rather than neutral genetic differentiation among fish and shellfish populations might provide practical tools for stock identification and thereby contribute to improved fisheries policies.Special Revie

Experimental evidence for sex-specific plasticity in adult brain

Background: Plasticity in brain size and the size of different brain regions during early ontogeny is known from many vertebrate taxa, but less is known about plasticity in the brains of adults. In contrast to mammals and birds, most parts of a fish's brain continue to undergo neurogenesis throughout adulthood, making lifelong plasticity in brain size possible. We tested whether maturing adult three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) reared in a stimulus-poor environment exhibited brain plasticity in response to environmental enrichment, and whether these responses were sex-specific, thus altering the degree of sexual size dimorphism in the brain. Results: Relative sizes of total brain and bulbus olfactorius showed sex-specific responses to treatment: males developed larger brains but smaller bulbi olfactorii than females in the enriched treatment. Hence, the degree of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in relative brain size and the relative size of the bulbus olfactorius was found to be environment-dependent. Furthermore, the enriched treatment induced development of smaller tecta optica in both sexes. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that adult fish can alter the size of their brain (or brain regions) in response to environmental stimuli, and these responses can be sex-specific. Hence, the degree of SSD in brain size can be environment-dependent, and our results hint at the possibility of a large plastic component to SSD in stickleback brains. Apart from contributing to our understanding of the processes shaping and explaining variation in brain size and the size of different brain regions in the wild, the results show that provision of structural complexity in captive environments can influence brain development. Assuming that the observed plasticity influences fish behaviour, these findings may also have relevance for fish stocking, both for economical and conservational purposes.Peer reviewe

Oceanographic connectivity and environmental correlates of genetic structuring in Atlantic herring in the Baltic Sea

Peer reviewe

High levels of fluctuating asymmetry in isolated stickleback populations

Background Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), defined as small random deviations from the ideal bilateral symmetry, has been hypothesized to increase in response to both genetic and environmental stress experienced by a population. We compared levels of FA in 12 bilateral meristic traits (viz. lateral-line system neuromasts and lateral plates), and heterozygosity in 23 microsatellite loci, among four marine (high piscine predation risk) and four pond (zero piscine predation risk) populations of nine-spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius). Results Pond sticklebacks had on average three times higher levels of FA than marine fish and this difference was highly significant. Heterozygosity in microsatellite markers was on average two times lower in pond (HE ≈ 0.3) than in marine (HE ≈ 0.6) populations, and levels of FA and heterozygosity were negatively correlated across populations. However, after controlling for habitat effect on heterozygosity, levels of FA and heterozygosity were uncorrelated. Conclusions The fact that levels of FA in traits likely to be important in the context of predator evasion were elevated in ponds compared to marine populations suggests that relaxed selection for homeostasis in ponds lacking predatory fish may be responsible for the observed habitat difference in levels of FA. This inference also aligns with the observation that the levels of genetic variability across the populations did not explain population differences in levels of FA after correcting for habitat effect. Hence, while differences in strength of selection, rather than in the degree of genetic stress could be argued to explain habitat differences in levels of FA, the hypothesis that increased FA in ponds is caused by genetic stress cannot be rejected.Peer reviewe