Phylogeography of the Pacific Sardine, Sardinops sagax, across its Northeastern Pacific Range

The Pacific sardine, (Sardinops sagax), is a small, coastal pelagic species in the family Clupeidae. Sardine are ecologically important forage for many animals, and have historically supported a large commercial fishery. To expand on previous evolutionary genetic studies of population structure and to test if population structure is present in Pacific sardine was reflective of long-term processes, 434 individuals were examined ranging from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Bahia Magdalena, Baja California, and from the Gulf of California. A 1062 bp fragment of the cytochrome b gene yielded small but significant fixation estimates of [[PHI].sub.ST] (0.01136, p = 0.032). Concordantly low fixation was observed for two [[PHI].sub.CT] groupings (0.00435, p = 0.128 and 0.00923, p = 0.021). These data support the null hypothesis of an absence of genetic structure in the Pacific sardine.
Analysis of population structure is important to the study of species and to the field of evolutionary biology. Molecular analysis of populations in relation to hypothesized barriers to gene flow [...]