Functional ecology of genes in fisheries conservation.

加拿大拥有世界五分之一的淡水资源和世界上最长的海岸线。这个栖息地对许多具有很高商业、娱乐和文化价值的鱼类物种来说很重要。研究和管理如此庞大的资源需要最先进的技术和最好的科学技术。这项研究计划将利用这些技术和技巧来解决养护、渔业管理、进化和生态学方面的应用和基本问题。 从魁北克到佛罗里达，条纹鱼都有产卵栖息地，并支持大西洋加拿大重要的娱乐和商业渔业。由于对物种的遗传组成缺乏了解，管理变得复杂，因为来自多个产卵来源的个体在海洋迁徙过程中混杂在一起。此外，一些历史上支持产卵的河流，如圣约翰河和圣劳伦斯河，在过去30年里不再支持产卵，尽管有一些复苏的迹象。我将使用基因组技术以高分辨率描述整个物种的特征。这将为管理者提供一种工具，从基因上将海洋迁徙个体分配到他们的原始产卵群。此外，我还将强调使加拿大北部人口独一无二的适应。 基因组学时代已经导致加拿大的许多鱼类物种的基因组完全测序(条纹鳕鱼、大西洋鲑鱼、大西洋鳕鱼、美洲鳗)。然而，这些基因中的许多都没有在主要的遗传模型(小鼠、人类、酵母)中描述，这导致了很大一部分基因组包含未知基因。在我的研究计划中，我将设计新的在线工具，允许对非模式生物的基因组进行比较，使跨物种基因组学和新的基因发现成为可能。这将进一步提高加拿大鱼类基因组学的效率，并阐明生态学在其他生物基因功能中的作用。总体而言，这项研究将用于利用最先进的基因组学技术更好地评估和管理区域鱼类种群，并培训下一代科学家掌握新的所需技能。

Canada has one-fifth of the world's freshwater resources and the world's longest coastline. This habitat is important to many fish species with high commercial, recreational, and cultural value. Researching and managing such a vast resource requires state-of-the-art technologies and the best scientific techniques. This research program will leverage these technologies and techniques to address applied and basic questions in conservation, fisheries management, evolution and ecology. Striped bass have spawning habitats from Quebec to Florida and support important recreation and commercial fisheries in Atlantic Canada. Management is complicated by the poor understanding of the genetic composition of the species, as individuals from multiple spawning origins mix during their ocean migrations. Also, some rivers that historically supported spawning, like the St. John and St. Lawrence Rivers, have not supported spawning in the last three decades, though there are some signs of recovery. I will use genomic techniques to characterize the entire species at high resolution. This will give managers a tool to genetically assign ocean migrating individuals to their origin spawning group. Also, I will highlight adaptations that make Canada's northern populations unique. The genomics era has resulted in many fish species in Canada having their genomes fully sequenced (Striped Bass, Atlantic Salmon, Atlantic Cod, American Eel). However, many of the genes in these have not been described in the major genetic models (mouse, human, yeast), and this has led a large portion of genomes to contain unknown genes. In my research program, I will design new online tools that allow comparisons between genomes of non-model organisms, making cross-species genomics and new gene discovery possible. This will further improve the efficacy of genomics for Canada's fish and also clarify the role of ecology in gene function of other organisms. Overall, this research will be used to better assess and manage regional fish populations using the most state-of-the-art genomics techniques and train the next generation of scientists in the new required skills.