Investigating the relationship between management practices and genetic diversity: a population genetics study of pen shell clam (Atrina tuberculosa) in the Gulf of California, Mexico
Abstract
The management of commercial fisheries is complicated by the movement of the resource
of interest among areas with different management practices. When a species is heavily
harvested in one portion of its range, the effects are translated to other fisheries
in terms of a decline in abundance, or in some cases, a loss of genetic diversity.
Conserving genetic diversity is important, especially in commercially harvested populations,
because it provides the population with greater resilience to changing environmental
conditions. One popular strategy that fisheries managers use to alleviate the differences
in fishing pressures across the entire range of a species is the establishment of
marine protected areas. MPAs also act to conserve biodiversity within their boundaries,
and many areas of the world’s highest marine biodiversity occur in developing countries
where commercial fishing is practiced at small scales. Understanding the interplay
between MPAs and small-scale fisheries will allow for the most comprehensive management
decisions. My research uses molecular techniques to investigate the levels of genetic
diversity between two commercially harvested bivalve populations in the Gulf of California,
Mexico in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based MPA in terms of
a potential genetic benefit to an open-access fishery. The results show no significant
genetic structure or difference in levels of genetic diversity between the two populations,
and the lack of private alleles indicates that there is positive gene flow between
these two areas by means of larval transport. Despite the influx of larvae from the
MPA to the open-access fishery, pen shell abundances continue to decline, and these
data suggest that the presence of an MPA adjacent to this open-access fishery is not
enough to sustain the population under current harvesting practices.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8474Citation
Rayfield, Megan (2014). Investigating the relationship between management practices and genetic diversity:
a population genetics study of pen shell clam (Atrina tuberculosa) in the Gulf of
California, Mexico. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8474.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info