Genomics of native fish populations
Members of the Great Lakes Genomics Center are working with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to determine the status of fish populations in Wisconsin and how they may have changed over the past several decades. Investigators Emily Latch (Biological Sciences) and Rebecca Klaper (School of Freshwater Sciences) are working with WI DNR fisheries ecologist Andrew Rypel to examine changes in panfish populations from historic populations to those that are in the same lakes today. Using microsatellites, fragments of highly repetitive DNA (meaning they contain simple sequence tandem repeats of the nucleic acids, CCGCCGCCGCCG for example) that are found throughout the genome and are often highly polymorphic. This means that individuals across a population may have many versions of this repeat and closely related individuals can be identified by their similarities in the number of repeats they contain. Using these sequences scientists can determine how populations may be similar or different including historic populations and current ones. Latch, Klaper and Rypel are using this technique to examine how populations may have changed over time due to fishing or stocking in an effort to support fisheries in the State of Wisconsin. For more information regarding the issues of panfish in Wisconsin visit: http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/2013/06/panfish.htm
