Spatio-temporal population structuring and genetic diversity retention in depleted Atlantic Bluefin tuna of the Mediterranean Sea
Open accessAbstract
Fishery genetics have greatly changed our understanding of population dynamics and structuring in marine fish. In this study, we show that the Atlantic Bluefin tuna (ABFT, Thunnus thynnus), an oceanic predatory species exhibiting highly migratory behavior, large population size, and high potential for dispersal during early life stages, displays significant genetic differences over space and time, both at the fine and large scales of variation. We compared microsatellite variation of contemporary (n = 256) and historical (n = 99) biological samples of ABFTs of the central-western Mediterranean Sea, the latter dating back to the early 20th century. Measures of genetic differentiation and a general heterozygote deficit suggest that differences exist among population samples, both now and 96-80 years ago. Thus, ABFTs do not represent a single panmictic population in the Mediterranean Sea. Statistics designed to infer changes in population size, both from current and past genetic variation, suggest that some Mediterranean ABFT populations, although still not severely reduced in their genetic potential, might have suffered from demographic declines. The short-term estimates of effective population size are straddled on the minimum threshold (effective population size = 500) indicated to maintain genetic diversity and evolutionary potential across several generations in natural populations.
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Within each basin, bluefin tuna can have finer genetic and population structure.
“Within each basin, tuna can have finer genetic and population structure (Carlsson et al., 2004;Riccioni et al., 2010)”
From Evolutionary and ecological constraints of fish spawning habitats (2015) · cites this paper as Riccioni et al., 2010
The Discussion reports spatial genetic differences among Atlantic bluefin tuna samples within the Mediterranean Sea and suggests that this basin contains distinct geographical populations. The paper supports finer structure within the Mediterranean basin, but its findings do not establish that structure occurs within each basin. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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Cites
Electronic tagging and population structure of Atlantic bluefin tuna
Block, B. A., Teo, S. L. H., Walli, A., Boustany, A., Stokesbury, M. J. W., Farwell, C. J., Weng, K. C., Dewar, H., & Williams, T. D. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature03463 · Cited by 781 · cited 4× · see citing works
“, around the Balearic Islands and in the Southern Tyrrhenian (14)], and by recent fishery (16) and tagging (11) data.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialBiomass, Size, and Trophic Status of Top Predators in the Pacific Ocean
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Life History and Stock Structure of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (<i>Thunnus thynnus</i>)
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Evolutionary and ecological constraints of fish spawning habitats
Ciannelli, L., Bailey, K., & Olsen, E. M. (2015) · ICES Journal of Marine Science · doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsu145 · Cited by 127 · see citing works
- Authors
- Riccioni, G., Landi, M., Ferrara, G., Milano, I., Cariani, A., Zane, L., Sella, M., Barbujani, G., & Tinti, F.
- Affiliations
- University of Ferrara (IT)
- University of Bologna (IT)
- University of Padua (IT)
- Institute Center for Marine Research, 52210 Rovinj, Croatia (formerly Istituto Italo-Germanico di Biologia Marina/Deutsch-Italienisches Institut für Meersbiologie, Rovigno, Italy)
- Corresponding author
- Tinti, Fausto
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-02-02
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 2102-2107
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2836650
- OpenAlex
- W2126127524
- Cited by
- 117
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 7.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Ferrara (University of Ferrara) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Università degli Studi di Cagliari
- Università degli Studi di Genova
- Università di Bologna
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Marine and fisheries research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Keywords
- Thunnus thynnus, population structure, genetic diversity, effective population size, microsatellite markers, heterozygote deficiency, population decline, fishery depletion, Mediterranean Sea, spatiotemporal variation, migratory species, dispersal
- MeSH terms
- Alleles, Animals, Atlantic Ocean, Genetics, Population, Mediterranean Sea, Models, Genetic, Population Density, Population Dynamics, Tuna, Genetic Variation, Ecosystem, Microsatellite Repeats, Evolution, Molecular, Animal Migration
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