Morphological and molecular differentiation of wild and farmed gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata: implications for management

Abstract

AEI Aquaculture Environment Interactions Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections AEI 6:43-54 (2014) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00111 Morphological and molecular differentiation of wild and farmed gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata: implications for management Tanja Šegvić-Bubić1,*, Igor Talijančić2, Leon Grubišić1, David Izquierdo-Gomez3, Ivan Katavić1 1Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, PO Box 500, Šetalište Ivana Meštrovića 63, 21000 Split, Croatia 2University Department of Marine Studies, University of Split, Livanjska 5/III, 21000 Split, Croatia 3Department of Marine Sciences and Applied Biology, University of Alicante, PO Box 99, 03080 Alicante, Spain *Corresponding author: tanja.segvic@izor.hr ABSTRACT: A combination of molecular and morphological characteristics was used to investigate populations of wild and farmed gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata from the largest Croatian shellfish production area, Mali Ston Bay. Identification of farmed escapees was performed in the wild in order to evaluate and compare the detection sensitivity of molecular and morphological tools. Using a traditional set of measurements and a truss network system, morphometric trait analysis of gilthead sea bream showed clear body shape differences between individuals from the wild and farmed populations. Microsatellite markers only revealed weak neutral genetic differentiation between farmed and wild samples from Mali Ston Bay (Wright’s FST = 0.019, p > 0.05; Jost’s DEST = 0.022), despite the fact that the farmed gilthead sea bream were of Atlantic origin. Using assignment tests, morphological (16%) and molecular (25%) analysis identified farmed escapees in the samples of wild gilthead sea bream in the vicinity of aquaculture sites. Morphological data showed good potential for distinguishing recent escapees in wild populations, since these characteristics are affected by the environment. This study demonstrates the presence of escapees in the local wild population in this region, and suggests the potential for genetic interaction. KEY WORDS: Aquaculture · Sparus aurata · Escape · Microsatellite DNA · Morphology Full text in pdf format Supplementary material PreviousNextCite this article as: Šegvić-Bubić T, Talijančić I, Grubišić L, Izquierdo-Gomez D, Katavić I (2014) Morphological and molecular differentiation of wild and farmed gilthead sea bream Sparus aurata: implications for management. Aquacult Environ Interact 6:43-54. https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00111 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AEI Vol. 6, No. 1. Online publication date: November 11, 2014 Print ISSN: 1869-215X; Online ISSN: 1869-7534 Copyright © 2014 Inter-Research.