Application of genetic and evolutionary approaches in marine conservation and management (Case study: PANGAS project)

Abstract

Contemporary studies of population structure and genetic diersity increasingly employ new analytical and technical tools that proide high-resolution genetic information. These tools, that include procedures such as polymerase chain reaction amplification (PCR) and automatic DNA sequencing, combine to proide unprecedented power to detect and interpret genetic ariation in natural populations. There are numerous adantages to applying molecular tools for studying the structure and dynamics of marine ecosystems, especially for purposes of marine resere design and sustainable fisheries management. For the latter, results of connectiity studies allow us to predict how populations are likely to respond to arying leels of etraction or protection by eplicitly accounting for replenishment of populations through local or distant sources. The geographic scale of genetic structure helps guide decisions on the scale of management schemes. We are able to inestigate the spatial genetic structure of certain targeted species (in this case species of fish and inertebrates that are of commercial interest) thanks to adances in molecular approaches - both regarding the deelopment of new technologies as well as their increased aailability (molecular techniques are becoming more affordable and aailable for population leel studies that require large numbers of samples). Some of the procedures and tools that will be mentioned here are the following DNA isolation; PCR amplification; Automatic DNA sequencing; Data (DNA sequence) analysis using arious software packages which inoled sequence alignment and analysis, phylogenetic reconstructions and population genetics.

Keywords

• DNA isolation; PCR amplification; DNA sequencing