Inter-Research > AEI > v10 > p447-463  
AEI
Aquaculture Environment Interactions

via Mailchimp

AEI 10:447-463 (2018)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00282

Tracing the genetic impact of farmed turbot Scophthalmus maximus on wild populations

F. D. Prado1,2, M. Vera1, M. Hermida1, A. Blanco1, C. Bouza1, G. E. Maes3,4, F. A. M. Volckaert3, AquaTrace Consortium5, P. Martínez1,*

1Department of Zoology, Genetics and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Veterinary, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 27002 Lugo, Spain
2CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil, Brasília, Brazil
3Laboratory of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Genomics, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
4Laboratory for Cytogenetics and Genome Research, Center for Human Genetics, Genomics Core, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
5European FP7 KBBE project AquaTrace (311920): the development of tools for tracing and evaluating the genetic impact of fish from aquaculture
*Corresponding author:

ABSTRACT: The impact of escapees from aquaculture is of general concern for the sustainability of natural resources. Turbot Scophthalmus maximus is a marine flatfish of great commercial value whose land-based aquaculture started approx. 40 yr ago; hence, a low impact of escapees is expected on wild populations. However, enhancement of wild stocks using farmed turbot has been carried out along the Northeast Atlantic coasts in the last decades. Recently, a broad panel of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers (755 SNPs; 1 SNP Mb-1) has been used to evaluate the genetic structure of turbot throughout its distribution range, constituting the baseline to evaluate the impact of farmed fish in the wild. Two distinct origins were identified for farmed turbot (F_ORI1 and F_ORI2; FST = 0.049), which differentiated from wild populations after 5 generations of selection (average FST = 0.059), and consistent evidence of adaptation to domestication was detected. A notable proportion of fish of farmed ancestry was detected in the wild (15.5%), mainly in the North Sea, where restocking activities have taken place, determining genetic introgression in wild populations. Conversely, effects of land-based aquaculture appear negligible. A simulation exercise supported panels of 40 and 80 SNPs to identify fishes of F_ORI1 and F_ORI2 ancestry in the wild, respectively. Application to empirical data showed an assignment success (wild/farmed ancestry) of approx. 95% in comparison with the full SNP dataset. The SNP tools will be useful to monitor turbot of farmed ancestry in the wild, which might represent a risk, considering the lower fitness of farmed individuals.


KEY WORDS: Aquaculture · Introgression · Restocking · Scophthalmus maximus · SNPs · Sustainability · Traceability tool


Full text in pdf format
Supplement 1
Supplement 2
Cite this article as: Prado FD, Vera M, Hermida M, Blanco A and others (2018) Tracing the genetic impact of farmed turbot Scophthalmus maximus on wild populations. Aquacult Environ Interact 10:447-463. https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00282

Export citation
Share:    Facebook - - linkedIn

 Previous article