Abstract
The Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) is one of the most important species in the commercial fisheries distributed in the North Pacific Ocean and the northeastern European seas. This teleost has marine and lake ecological forms a long its distribution in the Holarctic. However, the level of genetic differentiation between these two forms is not well known. In the present study, we used ddRAD-sequencing to genotype 54 specimens from twelve wild Pacific herring populations from the Kara Sea and the Russian part of the northwestern Pacific Ocean for unveiling the genetic structure of Pacific herring. We found that the Kara Sea population is significantly distinct from Pacific Ocean populations. It was demonstrated that lake populations of Pacific herring differ from one another as well as from marine specimens. Our results show that fresh and brackish water Pacific herring, which inhabit lakes, can be distinguished as a separate lake ecological form. Moreover, we demonstrate that each observed lake Pacific herring population has its own and unique genetic legacy.
Highlights
The Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) is a teleost species from the Clupeidae family and is one of the most important fishery species
Pairwise Fst genetic differentiation index was calculated for all studied Pacific herring populations (Table 2)
We found a significant differentiation of the Kara Sea individuals from all other marine and lake Pacific herring populations
Summary
The Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) is a teleost species from the Clupeidae family and is one of the most important fishery species. It inhabits cold waters of the Pacific and Arctic oceans. The natural distribution of the species covers (i) the North-Western Pacific from the Chukchi Sea to the Sea of Japan, and (ii) northeast European seas (White Sea, Pechersk Sea, and Kara Sea). Two ecological forms of Pacific herring (marine and lake) have been described to date (Andriyashev & Chernova, 1995; Gritsenko, 2002; Ivshina, 2001; Naumenko, 2001; Orlova et al, 2019). Twenty lake Pacific herring populations were described in the North Pacific part of its distribution (Trofimov, 2002). The lake ecological form of Pacific herring spawns and spends winter in brackish small bays and lagoon-type lakes having direct access to the sea without any long feeding migrations (Frolov, 1964), while the marine ecological form of herring spawns in large
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