Estimates of the Effective Population Size and Genetic Structure of the Critically Endangered Ship Sturgeon (<i>Acipenser nudiventris</i>) in the Chinese Section of the Ili River
Guo Hu,
Feng Chen,
Ying Zhang,
Peixian Luan,
Zhiyuan Luo,
Jiangong Niu,
Peng Zheng,
Sai Wang,
Tao Zhang,
Yongjun Shu,
Feng Ji
Affiliations
Guo Hu
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Feng Chen
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Ying Zhang
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Peixian Luan
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Zhiyuan Luo
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Jiangong Niu
Fisheries Science Research Institute of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Urumqi 830000, China
Peng Zheng
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Sai Wang
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Tao Zhang
Fisheries Science Research Institute of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Urumqi 830000, China
Yongjun Shu
Key Laboratory of Molecular Cytogenetics and Genetic Breeding of Heilongjiang Province, College of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, China
Feng Ji
Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Biotechnology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin 150070, China
Ship sturgeon (Acipenser nudiventris) is a critically endangered fish that is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. Sixteen individuals from the Chinese section of the Ili River were genotyped using genome re-sequencing technology. By applying a genomic relatedness estimation with 1,527,694 genome-wide SNP markers, we found that the coancestry coefficients showed a high level of relatedness between individuals. The effective population sizes over 500 generations were estimated, and this showed that the effective population sizes began to dramatically decline from about 14,840 to 171 individuals when going back four generations from the current population. Artificial reproduction techniques guided by genomic relatedness may be a valuable approach to the conservation of this critically endangered fish species.
