European hake (Merluccius merluccius) is an economically important species that have faced an historically high fishing pressure. As a consequence of the overfishing and drastic population declines in abundance, relevant management measures were implemented to help rebuild stocks across Europe. Nonetheless, the impact of the exploitation on the genetic diversity and therefore the adaptive potential of European hake to drivers as climate change remains a concern, and continued monitoring and management efforts are necessary to ensure their sustainability. In addition, the combined effects of anthropogenic activities and environmental changes are expected to alter the phenotypic and genetic composition of the populations. Under this context, the objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic status of wild populations of European hake and to predict the expected response in body length and weight because of exploitative selection. For that, we obtained genotypes through RAD-sequencing for three populations comprising Atlantic northern and southern stocks and western Mediterranean and estimated the levels of inbreeding using different genomic coefficients. Our preliminary results suggest the occurrence of potential inbreeding depression for the traits analysed, being this effect more evident for females. Given that females typically exhibit greater size and weight, they are the main target of the size-selective fisheries exploiting hake. The results derived from this study have an important value to adjust management practices concerning fisheries, with the aim of maintaining the genetic and ecological integrity of natural populations

FSBI 2024 Annual Symposium, Advancing fish ecology, management and forecasting through omics, 15th-19th July, Bilbao

Peer reviewed