Using SSR Marker to Trace Chinese Shrimp Fenneropenaeus chinensis Released in Natural Sea -A Feasible Strategy for Assessment of Release Effect in Natural Resources Recovery Program

Abstract

Enhancement release has been proven effective in natural resources recovery of Chinese shrimp Fenneropenaeus chinensis in the last several decades in China, however, to assess the effectiveness of enhancement release, we still need to develop a high-efficient and easy-operational method to replace those physical-tagging release method with labor intensive, size-and number-limited. In the present study, single (with maternal known) parentage identification using eight simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers genotype fingerprint was used to trace Chinese shrimp released in Bohai Bay in 2013. A total of 884 shrimp spawners were collected from two hatcheries in Tianjin City respectively after enhancement release of shrimp larvae in May 2013. A total of 844 shrimp samples were recaptured around the release location approximately 4 months after the shrimp larvae were released into the natural sea. Genotype data of 8 SSR loci of the 1, 726 samples were used for maternal-offspring parentage identification using CEervus 3.0 software. The allele number in each locus ranged from 8 to 68 with an average value of 33.25, which produced the cumulative exclusion probability with one parent known of all these sight loci up to 99%. Among the 844 recaptured shrimp samples, 448 (♂:♀=212:232, gender information was lost for 4 samples) were successfully traced to their 337 maternal parents using a logarithm of odds (LOD) > 3.0 threshold. Among these 337 maternal parents, 253 had a single offspring, 62 had two offspring, 18 had three offspring, 3 had four offspring, and 1 had five offspring. For the first time, a large number of released shrimp were identified from recapture samples, and this study showed that it is possible to trace all released Chinese shrimp without using any type of physical tag in enhancement release activities. This not only means more precise recapture ratio assessment than ever expected, but also this method demonstrates an effective method for large-scale hatchery release as well as for organisms used in hatchery enhancement which are not suitable for physical tagging.