Vol. 59, 2020

(update: 2020.11.25; 12.15)
 

Population Genetic Structure of A Marine Pelagic Egg Producer and Popular Marine Aquarium Species, the Mandarinfish Synchiropus splendidus

Priscilla T.Y. Leung^1,§, Ka Yan Ma^2,§,*, Min Liu³, Serge Planes⁴, and Yvonne Sadovy de Mitcheson⁵

¹State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. E-mail: priscilla_ty_leung@yahoo.com.hk (Leung)
²Simon F.S. Li Marine Science Laboratory, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China. *Correspondence: E-mail: makayana@gmail.com (Ma)
³State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China. E-mail: minliuxm@xmu.edu.cn (Liu)
⁴PSL Research University: EPHE-UPVD-CNRS, USR 3278 CRIOBE, Université de Perpignan, 52 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan Cedex,
France and Laboratoire d’Excellence CORAIL. E-mail: planes@univ-perp.fr (Planes)
⁵School of Biological Sciences, Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China. E-mail: yjsadovy@hku.hk (Sadovy de Mitcheson)

^§Leung TYP and Ma KY contributed equally to this work.
Received 2 July 2020 / Accepted 11 November 2020
Communicated by Benny K.K. Chan

The mandarinfish Synchiropus splendidus is extensively collected in Southeast Asia (mainly in the Philippines) and highly favoured for the marine aquarium trade. Males are more popular than females for their large first dorsal fins and the fishery is not managed. To examine possible population replenishment dynamics arising as a result of selective fishing, the effects of sex-selective fishing on sex ratios and
population connectivity were considered. This study determined the sex ratios and analyzed the population genetic structure from mandarinfish collected at six locations: one from Palau, where the species is not exploited, and five from Bohol in the Philippines, where the species has long been heavily fished. The findings reported very low male to female ratios (0.12 to 0.30) from four of the five locations in Bohol, with relatively more males to females in the specimens collected from Palau (2.3). The analyses from allozymes (43 alleles from 10 loci) and microsatellites (118 alleles from 5 loci) revealed that genetic connectivity was high among the five locations in the Philippines as well as with the specimens collected from the more-distant Palau. The genetic homogeneity observed across the geographical range considered is inconsistent with the hypothesized limited dispersal ability of the species and could be explained by recent species range expansion associated with sea level rise in the region. The results suggest that the present genetic structure, at least in the geographic region considered, may not be determined by current patterns of gene flow, but may, instead, be driven by recent sea-level changes associated with periods of glaciation. Caution is suggested to ensure that heavily localized fishing does not produce excessively biased adult sex ratios.

Key words: Dragonet, Aquarium trade, Bohol, Palau, Genetic structure, Sex ratio.

Citation: Leung PTY, Ma KY, Liu M, Planes S, Sadovy de Mitcheson Y. 2020. Population genetic structure of a marine pelagic egg producer andpopular marine aquarium species, the mandarinfish Synchiropus splendidus. Zool Stud 59:68. doi:10.6620/ZS.2020.59-68.

Supplementary Materials: Table S1 | Table S2 | Table S3 | Table S4 | Table S5 | Fig. S1 | Fig. S2