'Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG)'
Abstract
Little is known about intraspecific variation within the deacon rockfish (Sebastes di‐ aconus), a recently described species found in the northeast Pacific Ocean. We in‐ vestigated population structure among fish sampled from two nearshore reefs (Siletz Reef and Seal Rock) and one offshore site (Stonewall Bank) within a 15,000 neutral loci, whether analyzed independently or classified into nearshore and offshore groups. Male and females were readily distinguished using genetic data and 92 outlier loci were as‐ sociated with sex, potentially indicating differential selection between males and fe‐ males. Morphometric results indicated that there was significant secondary sexual dimorphism in otolith shape, but further sampling is required to disentangle potential confounding influence of age. This study is the first step toward understanding in‐ traspecific variation within the deacon rockfish and the potential management impli‐ cations. Since differentiation among the three sample sites was small, we consider the results to be suggestive of a single stock. However, future studies should evalu‐ ate how the stock is affected by differences in sex, age, and gene flow between the nearshore and offshore environments
