Genetic Variability at the Genome Level of Seriola lalandi Used for the Chilean Aquaculture

Developing breeding programs from wild species, invoke interesting questions regarding the genetic variability of the populations used for stocking. However, species such as Seriola lalandi   lacks of sufficient genomic resources required for assessing broodstock relationships, genetic contributions and population assessment. This is a very important issue in marine species, where, it is not possible to keep family records during the first stages of development due to communal spawning. Therefore, inbreeding and relatedness can increase dramatically if algorithms for maintaining the rate of inbreeding when selecting broodstock are not used. We are aiming at developing the required genomic tools using sequencing of whole genomes for SNP discovery and transcriptomes in order to discover new transcripts and for annotation of the genome. We obtained estimates of genetic diversity using individuals obtained recently gathered from fisheries along the Chilean coast. These founders are going to be used to develop the Chilean breeding program of this species, but little is known about the genetic variability of this group. Using extensive sequencing, we have predicted more than 200K SNPs in coding regions and more than 5 million SNPs at the whole genome level. Mean and distribution of estimates of the TajimaD’ estimates suggest a population subjected to balancing selection, but a slightly higher number of regions appeared to under directional selection. The ratio (Ts/Tv) was equal to 1.50.  The individual inbreeding using all data available was very small and it is not consistent with estimates based on microsatellites obtained from other Seriola species. The SNPs characterized at the genome level, will be available for use in genomic selection, calculation of inbreeding and relatedness at the genomic level, while developing a SNP chip platform specifically for this species. PDACH 09PDAC-7020