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

这个美国-墨西哥的奖项将支持金伯利·塞尔科女士在加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的史蒂文·D·盖恩斯博士的指导下进行的论文研究。Selkoe女士打算与Lydia Ladah博士和她在下加利福尼亚州巴哈的Cientifica y de Education acion Superior de Ensenada(CICESE)的研究生们合作，在7个地点采集海带组织样本，并在墨西哥巴哈太平洋沿岸的2个地点监测和收集新兵。这些墨西哥站点是塞尔科用来绘制海带鲈鱼扩散模式图的全范围采样阵列的重要组成部分。她将用她之前开发的7个微卫星标记对海带鱼组织样本进行基因分型，并应用一种名为基因分配(GA)的遗传方法来估计海带鱼的扩散模式。通过将扩散模式与来自该地区的详细海洋数据进行比较，她将解决关于流动在几个时空尺度上的扩散动力学中所起作用的假设，特别是关注跨越美国/墨西哥边境的连通性。随着世界各地的渔业继续崩溃，迫切需要更好地了解海洋物种的种群动态。海洋种群动态的经验知识充其量是基本的，这在很大程度上是因为研究公海幼虫阶段的挑战，这些阶段提供了世代之间和跨地点的联系。幼虫扩散的规模和可变性，以及种群之间的联系程度，在很大程度上仍然没有答案。成功的渔业管理将取决于了解人口连通性的准确规模以及这些规模上的流动动态在时间和空间上的影响。海洋科学部和国际科学与工程办公室共同资助了本论文的研究。

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.