Stepping up to genome scan allows stock differentiation in the worldwide
distributed blue shark Prionace glauca
Abstract
The blue shark Prionace glauca is a top predator with one of the widest
geographic distributions of any shark species, yet classified as
critically endangered in the Mediterranean Sea, and Near Threatened
globally. Previous genetic studies did not reject the null hypothesis of
a single global population across the worldwide species range. Blue
shark situation was proposed as a possible archetype of the ‘grey zone
of population differentiation’, coined to designate cases where
population structure may be too recent or too faint to be detected using
a limited set of markers. Here, blue shark samples collected throughout
its global range were sequenced using a specific ddRAD method (DArTseq;
Georges et al. 2018), which recovered 37,655 genome-wide single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Two main groups emerged, with
Mediterranean Sea and Northern Atlantic samples significantly
differentiated from the Indo-west Pacific samples. Significant pairwise
FST values indicated further genetic differentiation within the Atlantic
Ocean, and between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Reconstruction of recent demographic history suggested the divergence
between northern and southern oceanic populations emerged about 500
generations ago and revealed a drastic reduction in effective population
size from a large ancestral population. Our results illustrate the power
of high-density genome scans to detect population structure and
reconstruct demographic history in highly migratory marine species. As
the management of the blue shark fishery, either as target or as
bycatch, does not account for this delineation, we strongly recommend
that the results presented here be considered in future stock assessment
and management plans.