U.S.-Mexico Dissertation Enhancement: Marine Population Connectivity Across the U.S./Mexican Border: A Genetic Approach to Dispersal Dynamics in Kelp Bass

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0402589GainesThis U. S.-Mexico award will support Ms. Kimberly Selkoe's dissertation research under the supervision of Dr. Steven D. Gaines of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ms. Selkoe intends to work with Dr. Lydia Ladah, and her graduate students at the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y de Educacion Superior de Ensenada, (CICESE), Baja California to collect kelp bass tissue samples at 7 sites and monitor and collect recruits at 2 sites along the Pacific coast of Baja, Mexico. These Mexican sites are crucial components of the range-wide sampling array Ms. Selkoe is using to map the dispersal patterns of kelp bass. She will genotype the kelp bass tissue samples with 7 microsatellite markers that she previously developed and apply a genetic approach called genotype assignment (GA) to estimate dispersal patterns in the kelp bass Paralabrax clathratus. By comparing the dispersal patterns to detailed oceanographic data from the region, she will address hypotheses on the role of flow in dispersal dynamics across several spatial and temporal scales, with particular focus on connectivity across the U.S./Mexico border.As fisheries around the world continue to crash, there is an urgent need to better understand the population dynamics of marine species. Empirical knowledge of population dynamics in the sea is basic at best, largely due to the challenge of studying the open sea larval phases that provide the link between generations and across locations. The question of the scale and variability of larval dispersal, and, consequently, the degree of connectivity among populations, remains largely unanswered. Successful fisheries management will depend on knowing accurate scales of population connectivity and the effects of flow dynamics on these scales through time and space. The Division of Ocean Sciences and the Office of International Science and Engineering are jointly funding this thesis dissertation research.