Molecular and Morphometric Variations in the Sea Raven, Hemitripterus villosus from Korea, with its Implication on Fisheries Management

Abstract

To understand and clarify the geographic variations of the Korean sea raven, Hemitripterus villosus, we investigated the molecular and morphometric characteristics of 147 individuals (in morphs) and 175 individuals (in molecules) collected from three locations in the Yellow Sea (Incheon, Boryeong, and Heuksando), one location in the Korea Strait (Busan), and two locations in the East Sea (Goseong and Pohang), around the Korean peninsula. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed there were no significant differences in meristic characteristics among locations, except for the number of vertebrae (mean, 39.7 in Goseong vs. and 38.4–38.8 in the remaining locations). A canonical discriminant analysis based on 25 morphometric characters showed that two groups were separated by the center value “0” of CAN1: Yellow Sea and Korea Strait individuals had positive values, whereas East Sea individuals had negative values. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) based on 801 base-pair sequences of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene showed that two lineages were separated by fixation (FST) index. A pairwise FST test revealed moderate genetic differentiation between the Goseong individuals (middle East Sea) and the individuals at the remaining locations except for the Pohang individuals (southern East Sea). Our molecular and morphometric analysis results indicate that there exists two populations in the Korean sea raven, and their admixture zone may be located near Pohang. Population subdivision might be associated with sea level change during last glacial period, and this may have been subsequently maintained by the hydrographic and oceanic current heterogeneity of each sea around the Korean peninsula. Accordingly, different management measures should be adopted with regard to the two groups, the East Sea group and the Yellow Sea + Korea Strait group.