posted on 2020-03-05, 06:29authored byMaría Quintela, François Besnier, Bjørghild Seliussen, Kevin A. Glover, Ulf Lindstrøm
The preference for coastal habitats makes the harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, vulnerable to fisheries conflicts and hence prone to die due to entangling in fishing nets. An opportunistic sampling of such casualties (134 individuals) in Norwegian waters was used to assess the genetic population structure of the species by SNP-genotyping at 78 loci. The results of genetic clustering obtained for these individuals failed to identify more than one genetic group. Likewise, the individually-based F did not meet an Isolation-by-Distance pattern, thus supporting the conclusion that harbour porpoise in Norway probably belongs to a single genetic group or population.
Funding
This study was funded by the FRAM Centre flagship project 'The role of harbor porpoise in Norwegian coastal marine communities' (project number 14808-03) and by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research through the project 'Fish communities' (project number 15406).