So long to genetic diversity, and thanks for all the fish. Issue 1 (January 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Allendorf, Fred W.; Berry, Oliver; Ryman, Nils
• Is Part Of: Molecular ecology. Volume 23:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 23
• Page End: 25
• Publication Date: 2014-01
• Subjects: Molecular ecology -- Periodicals; Molecular population biology -- Periodicals; 576
• DOI: 10.1111/mec.12574
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-1083

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="mec12574-abs-0001"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>The world faces a global fishing crisis. Wild marine fisheries comprise nearly 15% of all animal protein in the human diet, but, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 60% of all commercially important marine fish stocks are overexploited, recovering, or depleted (FAO <xref ref-type="link" rid="mec12574-bib-0007">2012</xref>; Fig. <xref ref-type="link" rid="mec12574-fig-0001">1</xref>). Some authors have suggested that the large population sizes of harvested marine fish make even collapsed populations resistant to the loss of genetic variation by genetic drift (e.g. Beverton <xref ref-type="link" rid="mec12574-bib-0003">1990</xref>). In contrast, others have argued that the loss of alleles because of overfishing may actually be more dramatic in large populations than in small ones (Ryman <italic>et al</italic>. <xref ref-type="link" rid="mec12574-bib-0019">1995</xref>). In this issue, Pinsky & Palumbi (<xref ref-type="link" rid="mec12574-bib-0018">2013</xref>) report that overfished populations have approximately 2% lower heterozygosity and 12% lower allelic richness than populations that are not overfished. They also performed simulations which suggest that their estimates likely underestimate the actual loss of rare alleles by a factor of three or four. This important paper shows that the harvesting of marine fish can have genetic effects that threaten the long‐term sustainability of this valuable resource.</p> </abstract>